The Annihilation
by Grand High Idol
Summary: First MI fic...what starts out as a seemingly simple task soon enough becomes the results of a science experiment gone horribly wrong...[Chapter 7 up, sorry for the long wait.]
1. Chapter One

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THE ANNIHILATION

By Grand High Idol

Disclaimer: I do not own Monsters, Inc., nor any of its characters.

CHAPTER I

The entire incident started, it appeared, on a regular Friday morning in Monstropolis. With the fact that it was Friday and thus the end of the work week lingering in the air, every employee at Monsters, Inc. was desperate to collect as many screams as possible in hopes that perhaps they would receive extra work credit; some of the other infamous monsters around the area wanted to make the fantasy that they could actually make it to the list of top screamers in the factory become real. Naturally, Randall Boggs, the second best Scarer to date in the factory, was the most desperate of all.

Of course, he never showed actual desperation; he just bragged a lot, being the ego-wise creature that he was. And the same happened in the locker room that morning, while everyone was preparing to go to work. This area was his bragging ground, and of course he always hung around Mike and Sully whenever he had the chance. Today was one of his luckier days, it appeared, for Mike seemed to be having a few problems locker-wise.

"Today's the day, Sullivan," he said in a rather confident air as Mike struggled to get his locker open. "I assure you that today I—" He placed his hand upon his chest rather proudly—"will finally knock you out of the number one spot and become the greatest Scarer of all time in this factory!"

"Oh, knock it off already, will you?" Mike said rather annoyedly, still tugging on the handle of his locker door. "You say that every day, and it's never happened yet. Why don't you just accept the fact that my pal Sully here—" He paused in trying to force open his locker to gesture toward the blue and purple, bear-like monster behind him—"will always be the best Scarer in this factory, and that there's nothing you can do about it?"

"You say that like it's impossible," Randall replied, still sounding confident with himself. He shook his head and crossed both pairs of arms over his chest. "But I can assure you that it's not. Trust me, on casual Friday I work my hardest."

"Well, so does he!" Mike snapped back, gesturing toward Sullivan again. He then quit on the argument; he was still having much trouble with his locker. "Oh, for the love of the Almighty! What happened here? Did someone glue my locker door shut?"

"Now, who would do that?" Randall said innocently, moving his hands behind his back. Mike glared at him, then was about to open his mouth to say something rather nasty at the lizard monster in return when—

"Boys!"

All three were slightly startled for a moment, then quickly stood to attention as Henry Waternoose entered, looking exquisite and intelligent, as usual. His hands were positioned behind his back and his head was up, but the three could easily tell that his gaze was fixated on them. Mike slowly closed his mouth and released his hand from the locker door as the crab-like monster stopped in front of them, then lowered the gaze of his many eyes directly at Sullivan and Randall.

After a short silence, Sully finally spoke. "Um, good morning, Mr. Waternoose!" he said, rather casually. "Nice weather we've been having lately, huh? And on a Friday, too…just our luck, I'm supposing…" Waternoose looked unimpressed, so he quickly changed the subject. "What did you come in here for, may I ask?"

Waternoose was silent for a few seconds, then he finally said to the two, "I have a new task for you to perform today. Follow me, if you would be so kind."

At this, he turned around and headed out of the locker room. Randall and Sullivan stared after him for a while, then looked at each other, glared at their rival for a moment, then slowly turned back toward the direction where Waternoose had walked off and headed out after him. Mike stayed behind, wondering why he had only called upon Randall and Sully for this "task" and had not even considered to glance at him, but he shook it off, thinking it was only a job for Scarers, and resumed to trying to force his locker door back open, which didn't look like it was about to budge anytime soon, sadly enough.

***

Waternoose led Randall and Sullivan down the main hallway, until they finally came upon the main Scare Floor. The two monsters looked around in confusion for a few seconds, wondering why he had brought them to such a familiar place if it was such an important, secretive task, then realized the facts, shook it off, and resumed to following Waternoose. He was now talking as he walked toward his destination, his hands still behind his back and his voice sounding rather grave.

"I only called on you two for this task, and you may wonder why that is," he told them as he continued in a slow gait down the Floor. "Well, I am to inform you that it is because you are the top Scarers in the entire factory, and nothing more. Only an experienced Scarer can handle such a task as this." He sighed and shook his head. "This is the first time in years that we have had to deal with something such as this. My father dealt with it a long time ago, but he assured the factory that it was never to happen again."

"What is it, exactly?" Sullivan asked, raising his eyebrow out of confusion.

"This," Waternoose finally replied as he stopped near a rather dark corner, adjacent to the computer system, in the door slot nearest their current standing spot. Randall and Sullivan could only stare for a moment, for the object that the factory boss had stopped in front of was nothing more than a regular closet door to the human world. They had dealt with millions of doors such as those, and while Sullivan was still trying to piece this together, Randall scoffed and rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest yet again.

"What was the point of even _calling_ us here this early?" he said, sounding rather annoyed with this fact. "It's just another door. Any Scarer can deal with something like _that_."

Waternoose glared angrily at him before continuing. "Not this door, my friend," he told the lizard creature, who stopped to stare at him. "This door has had previous legends—or, more appropriately, rumors—about it that other Scarers seem to easily believe." He paused before continuing, as if caught in a trance. "When my father worked at this factory, this door was just like any other door. It was used by hundreds of Scarers in the past, and nothing had ever happened. But then…" He paused again; Randall shot a glare of annoyance up at the ceiling. "But then one day, one of our Scarers went in there and…never came back out. Because of the 'human contamination', no one wanted to go in after him. He was lost…" He fixated his gaze back on the two and shook his head sadly. "He was lost…"

Sullivan's eyes widened slightly at this story, but Randall was unmoved. "So now what are you going to do?" the monster asked sarcastically. "After all these years you're finally going to send us in after him, or something? How would we even know where to look, if so? He's been gone for years!"

Waternoose glared at him again. "No, I was never planning on that," he informed the creature, sounding rather rough. "You see, a few years ago we've had rumors going around that the original children who resided in that house have moved away. The closet is now vacant to other children—perhaps even children that are afraid of monsters."

"And…?"

"In order to make sure that this is indeed correct, we need to test it. Because of the past rumors I cannot simply send in any Scarer. I need to send in one who has had much experience in the past, and because of that fact I have selected you two. I have indeed noticed that you both have made it to the list of top Scarers, if not you as number one, Sullivan." Randall growled at this remark. "Now, before the door is sent out to the main collection it needs to be tested as soon as possible. Which one of you would care to volunteer for this task? Remember, it involves some incredible risks…especially if the rumors we've been receiving are false. You're probably risking life and limb if you go in there now."

"But if the door is so dangerous, why didn't you shred it to bits in the first—" Randall began, suddenly noticing this fact, but Waternoose, who seemed to know where he was getting at, stopped him before he could finish his sentence.

"So, are any of you planning on volunteering?" His gaze traveled from Randall to Sully. "The volunteer will have my greatest regards. If you come out successful, I may even give you extra work credit for your trouble."

Sullivan, being what he was, was always ready to volunteer for any job Waternoose may offer. "I'll go—" he began, raising up his hand, but before he could finish fully Randall quickly butted in front of him, blocking him from view almost entirely.

"No way, Sullivan!" he snapped at the monster behind him; he then fixated his gaze on Waternoose and casually crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I'd be more than happy to offer, Waternoose. Now that you mention it, I could use something extra to do with my time as is."

Sullivan rolled his eyes at this remark and folded his arms, but Waternoose looked more than pleased. "Excellent, Mr. Boggs," he said happily; he then looked up at the door's light, which had been glowing a dull red since they had first entered. He slowly backed away, then made a hand gesture toward it. "The door is already prepared for the task. I wish you the best of luck in your mission."

"Yeah, yeah, thanks," Randall said quickly; he then shifted up to the door and shoved it open before quickly slinking inside it, outward into the room that lay beyond the doorway. He remained flat on the ground for a few seconds before finally getting to his feet, dusting himself off quickly, and cautiously looking around.

As the door slammed behind him, the room became engulfed in darkness—save the short beam of moonlight shining through a window across from him—and for a few moments the lizard monster could only stand there and stare. Although it was rather dim, he could still see quite a few details of the room itself—it was a child's room, all right; the small twin bed in the corner was proof enough for that. But it didn't look a thing like the children's rooms he'd seen in the past. For one thing, this room was entirely white—the paint on the walls was white, the chairs and tables in the room, the framed portraits on the walls, the tiled floor, even a few pieces of odd-looking, seemingly mediocre machinery in the corner—all white. He at least thought that a child such as this would have a bit of color in the room, but no matter. He could easily shift colors to white any day; it would be no big problem for someone like him.

After he finally came to his senses, he slowly began to slink across the room, toward the direction of the bed. He was sure to keep quiet for the sake of surprise, and all the while he was thinking that this was going to be just like any other scare he had done before, but just when he was about three yards from the bed he heard a rustle…and the child within the bed stirred.

Not expecting this to happen, he flattened against the wall nearest him, then, thinking of the first thing that came to his mind, quickly changed his skin tone to white just as the kid sat up. Now in full view, Randall could see that he was a rather small kid, about no more than ten or eleven, and was rather pale, with black hair. He was currently wearing pajamas that were the same color as his room, and as he reached over toward his beside table the lizard monster could clearly see that he wore glasses as well—black-rimmed, thick ones. He now remained completely still, trying to keep his breathing pattern as slow and as quiet as possible, as the kid slowly got out of the bed, then stretched and yawned, and began to head for the doorway.

Randall knew for the sake of timing that he shouldn't suddenly reappear and scare the kid out of his socks before he left the room, but he was itching to do so—he was a _monster_, after all. Deciding that he should do it now before he might not have the chance to do it again, he shifted his colors back just as the kid turned around (being half asleep), and slowly loomed forward.

The kid noticed him at once, and his eyes grew wide behind the thick lenses of his black glasses. Randall snickered to himself, then slowly raised his arms up, bared his teeth—he made sure that the moonlight hit them for added effect—narrowed his eyes, then let out an ear-splitting roar and lunged toward him. It worked—the kid screamed at the top of his lungs, then whipped around and ran out the doorway, into the hall. Randall halted his lunge, then snickered to himself again and crossed his arms. The "pretend lunge" always worked on small children…they always seemed to be afraid of something jumping at them out of the shadows. Then again, he thought, it wasn't only the children who freaked out at the lunge…he briefly remembered Wazowski…

He was too caught up in his thoughts for a few seconds to notice that the kid had stopped his screaming and was now shouting down the hallway as he ran. As his mind finally cleared, he heard the child's shouts as plain as day, and by the choice of words he didn't like the sound of it at all:

"Daddy! Daddy! Wake up! There's something in my room! Come and get it! Please!"

At hearing this Randall froze in place entirely. Sure, he could handle kids just fine, but never before in his scaring career had a child bolted out of the room and screamed for its parents over and over until help finally came. He had never come across an adult before in his life, and thus he did not know their strengths, weaknesses…nothing. If this child's father indeed heard his cries…he couldn't let that happen. Not tonight.

His first thoughts were turning around toward the closet door and heading back in the direction that he came in. That way, he realized, once the father indeed stirred and came into the room to investigate, he would see nothing and think that the child was just imagining things. He had heard of that quite a few times over conversations, and in this situation he was in it sounded like a reasonable choice.

As he heard the sound of the floorboards creaking under a great amount of weight, he quickly turned around and bolted for the closet door...and ended up colliding with it rather hard. Realizing the fact that it had slammed shut after he had gone in, he quickly recovered, then reluctantly placed his hand on the door and tried to push it open. It refused to budge, and thus he placed his entire body upon it, but still nothing happened. Afterward he tried to pull it open, but to no such avail; it appeared to be bolted shut.

"Well, this is just great," he muttered under his breath, sounding rather frustrated; he then heard the sound of voices coming from the hallway. Not wanting to give himself up, he quickly backed into one of the corners and shifted colors, just as two figures entered the room. One was the child he had scared, the other was a much larger version of him—namely, the kid's father. The kid was still trembling with fright and clinging onto his father's hand, while the older man was looking around the room cautiously, a suspicious gaze in his eyes.

Randall remained completely still as the father stopped in the center of the room, then slowly stepped over to the wall nearest him—yards from the corner where the lizard creature was standing—and slowly placed his hands on his hips, still looking around suspiciously.

"It was right there, daddy!" the kid exclaimed, pointing a shaking finger at the wall near his bed. "It just suddenly appeared and it tried to jump at me…it was going to eat me, I'll bet…"

"Jeremy, I told you that there are no such things as monsters," the father replied, leaning against the wall—his hand was now about a yard or two from Randall's shoulder. "You had this same problem last night, and you again ran to me and said that you saw a monster in your room."

"But daddy, I swear that I saw a monster in my room! It was right next to my bed!"

"It was probably just another one of your nightmares." The man placed his other hand on his forehead and sighed. "Listen, Jeremy, I don't have time for this. I've got a nature hike first thing in the morning, and if I don't find an experimental specimen within a week I'm afraid that I'll have to cancel my experiment…I can't let that happen, what with all this debt I've been in science-wise…" He sighed again and shook his head. "Listen, I'm sure that if you go back to bed, the 'monster' won't bother you again—what in the name of the world…?"

He said this last sentence as he shifted his weight to the side, thus letting his arm lean against the wall that met at the corner. However, as his hand had shot out, the tips of his fingers had brushed against Randall's chest, and the lizard monster had flinched slightly at the touch of an unknown human specimen. He quickly drew his hand back, stared at the corner in shock for a while, then quickly jabbed his hand out again, in a swinging motion to the side. 

Having not enjoyed the previous touch of the human, Randall quickly moved to the side, but not before the man's fingertips could strike his chest again. Randall growled in frustration quietly, as the man slowly withdrew his hand and stared at the wall again, as the child (namely, Jeremy) slowly came up beside him.

"What is it, daddy?" Jeremy asked, his eyes still wide. "What's going on?"

"I…I don't know…" The man appeared to be staring out into space for a while, and the lizard monster slowly began moving to the side, hoping that the man's state of shock would be enough for him to get out of the room and possibly try to find a substitute closet. However, just as he was about to leave the wall, the man finally drew himself back, then shouted, "But I know that it's not any invisible friend!"

Right after he said this, without warning, he lunged forward, in the unseen Randall's direction. The lizard creature only had time to freeze in shock, then the man tackled him, sending him onto the ground. Now that the human was on top of him, Randall was at his maximum point of fear—though it was rare when he showed any—and thus did the only thing that came to his mind at the moment. He slammed his hand into the man's chest—hard.

Sure enough, the man let out a gasp of pain and shock, then slowly recoiled, releasing his hold from Randall. The lizard monster slowly arose, but it was not to be for long. The man had recovered quickly, and after a few seconds he leapt forward again, managing to snag the monster by the tail. He then pulled backward, causing Randall to lose his footing and fall to the ground yet again, emitting a loud _THUNK_. The monster twitched a few times, then snarled in fury and, turning around, leapt toward the human. Now was a brawl of choice, it appeared, and the lizard creature had had _enough_ with this man.

The man let out another shout of pain and shock as Randall shot out, slamming his first pair of hands into the man's chest and knocking him down on the floor. He held his position, pressing more force onto the man with every moment that he struggled, still standing in a rather threatening pose—though he knew that the man couldn't see it—over him. The man didn't get the message, however, and continued to struggle, and Randall, knowing for certain that he had the upper hand in the brawl now, decided to shift back to his original pigment, to allow the human he was fighting with to actually _see_ his opposer.

With the man still staring up at the ceiling, Randall allowed himself to slowly fade into full view, although he was still slightly shadowed due to the room's lighting. However, now that the man could see what he was truly battling, he gave a short gasp, and Randall could see his fearful eyes grow wider. "Good Lord, what on earth is this…this _thing_!?"

"That's him, daddy!" Jeremy exclaimed, pointing at Randall; he sounded very excited. "That's the monster that I was telling you about!"

"Good Lord!" the man repeated; Randall narrowed his eyes further and allowed them to burn directly into his. "I don't even—it's not in any of the—biology never explained—" He shut his mouth and paused for a moment before finally shouting, "Jeremy! Do something! Tranquilize it! Tranquilize it now!"

"But daddy, it's—"

"I said to tranquilize it, and nothing else! Quick, get the required materials before the thing does any more damage!"

Jeremy said nothing more, but quickly turned around and began to run in the direction of the doorway. Randall, knowing that whatever they were planning to do couldn't possibly be good for him, turned away from the man for a brief moment, then gave another low snarl and slowly released his grip from the man's chest. He at once dropped down onto all eights, and began to advance on the child, a threatening gaze upon his face as he drew closer. He then coiled back and was just about to lunge for the boy when a pair of hands shot out and grabbed him, halting his leap abruptly and sending him down onto the ground yet again.

"Oh no you don't," the man hissed at him, as Jeremy quickly disappeared down the hallway. Randall felt a feeling of helplessness for a few moments, but after a while quickly recovered from it and growled again in response at the man. He slowly raised one of his arms up, spread out his fingers, then slowly drew them back…he waited a few seconds until he was sure that the man thought he wasn't about to act, then—

"_AAAAAAARRRRGGHH_!"

The man nearly leapt a foot into the air, then recoiled yet again, clutching his stomach area with both hands. Randall slowly got to his feet, then drew himself up to full height, to make himself look more menacing, and slowly began to advance on him yet again. The man coughed a few times, then released his hands from his stomach and stared up at him, a fearful gaze on his face as he eyed the lizard monster. Randall grinned at his show of uneasiness, then slowly extended his hands and was about to make his next move, when something shot through the air and embedded itself directly into his neck, near the jaw.

The lizard monster gave a yelp of surprise, then fell to the ground, clutching his neck where the object had struck. Naturally, he came across the object that had struck him, and, although the last thing he wanted to do was to touch a human item (of course, it didn't matter much anyway, seeing that he had just fought with a human man for about five minutes), he slowly wrapped his fingers around it and tugged it out of his neck.

He cringed a bit as the object left the stricken area, and he now uncurled his hand to examine what exactly the object had been. Upon seeing it, his gaze of shock and pain now became one of great dissatisfaction. The only thing that they could manage to do after all this, was to fire a rather small dart directly into his jawbone? He shook his head. If that was all that they could do, he could easily finish what he had started earlier.

Tossing the dart aside, he slowly raised himself to his feet, then turned around in the direction that the dart was fired in—namely, the doorway. Seeing that Jeremy was standing in the center, holding what appeared to be a rather small gun in one hand, he emitted a low, throaty, slightly raging noise from his vocal cords, then slowly began to advance on the trembling boy, who was making no effort to move whatsoever.

He had only advanced a yard when he realized that he was beginning to feel slightly dazed. His vision was beginning to blur, and a small bought of drowsiness overtook him, but he decided that it was just an effect of the fight and continued his advance, although he did slump a bit as he stepped.

After another two yards he was barely able to stand up straight. Gasping for breath, he looked up in Jeremy's direction, only to see a series of blurred colors. The drowsiness was pressing onto him even more intensely, now, and his body was beginning to shake; he could no longer support himself. He only had a few seconds to wonder what on earth was wrong with him, but there was no such luck in figuring it out firsthand. It wasn't from the fight, he knew…

He knew that the man was standing behind him, but he didn't have the strength to turn around, nor the urge. He knew that the boy was directly in front of him, but he had barely any strength left to even stand. Gasping, he dropped down onto all eights yet again, then shook for a few moments, trying to hold his posture…

He failed. Three seconds later his entire body went completely numb, and he collapsed in a heap on the floor, not wanting to move another muscle, refusing to get up even though he could sense the approaching footsteps of the two humans…his brain was screaming for him to get up and try to fight the urge to shut himself down…but he ignored it and shuddered a few moments before allowing his entire body to relax…

Then came the darkness.


	2. Chapter Two

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THE ANNIHILATION

By Grand High Idol

CHAPTER II

Needless to say, Randall remained out for quite a few hours before he finally came into conscientiousness. Of course, when he awoke he realized that he was no longer in the boy's room. He saw silver—and lots of it. At first thoughts he wondered if he had somehow managed to get back into the Monsters Inc. factory and was currently lying in the middle of the Scare Floor, but he quickly shook that thought from his head. After all, he had dropped to the ground right when he was about to attack…and the closet door was locked…but it was odd, in a way. Ever since he started he had never recalled a closet door locking on him before. Was it meant to be that way? Was this the reason why the monster that went in there years ago never came back out?

He groaned, then brought one of his hands up to his jaw-line, where the dart had struck him. It was still numb; he couldn't open his mouth even half an inch without feeling a great show of discomfort. He slowly removed his hand from his jaw, he couldn't feel anything from the point of his mouth to his neck, and was about to turn over the other way when there was a quiet _SHINK _sound, and something tugged at his neck.

His eyes widened in confusion at this, and he quickly turned over to the other side, in time for something to tug at his hands as well. Growling angrily, he hoisted himself up—careful not to quicken it to the point where he would be tugged at again—and looked down at his hands. Sure enough, he found that there were several metal bands clamped tightly around his wrists—all four of them, accompanied by four more shackles on his feet. They were connected to chains that led to the floor and bound him in place. Taking a short glance at his neck, he could see that there was a chain running down from it as well; he guessed that to play safe the two humans had shackled his neck, to prevent him from doing anything to them with his teeth.

The humans. Of course. They were the ones that had caused him to fall, then bound him and placed him in some kind of metal cage; he could see the bars from the spot where he was lying. Where were they? And why had they put him to sleep in the first place? Did they want something more to do with him than to just make him pay for what he had tried to do to the both of them?

_Halt your questions, Randall_, he scolded himself as he slumped back down on the floor again. _You've already gone dead in the mind for quite a while; you don't need to overwhelm yourself with all these pathetic questions. I'm sure you'll find out soon enough…you just have to wait a few moments…I'm sure that they'll be back for more any second now…_

He was proven to be right. A few moments later, as he lay on the floor in a tired position, the older man—the one whom he remembered fighting with earlier before he dropped—came into the room, then cast a glance at the lizard creature before walking across the room. Randall monitored him from out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't catch much; he didn't even see any bit of the scenery beyond the bars of his cage. He thus turned his head, ignoring the yank of the chains on him again, and slowly lowered his head to the floor, so that he could watch without any suspicions from the man.

He now saw that the scenery beyond the bars had proven to be a laboratory of some sort; he was already familiar with the alignment, having worked in a laboratory of his own many times. But this one was different from his own—it contained several pieces of foreign machinery that he had never seen before in his life, along with several experimental test tools aligned on a table near the spot where the man was standing. There were several new-age computer monitors behind this table, and several more things beyond. It could stretch on for miles due to the given space, he realized.

The man now casually walked over to the table, then slowly reached toward a chair behind him and removed something from the top. He then brought it in front of him (the lizard monster could now see that it was proven to be a white lab coat) and slowly put it on, then buttoned the front and stood up straight, adjusting his glasses in the process. _The man's a scientist_, Randall suddenly realized. That put things in a whole new light for him. If this man was indeed what he appeared to be, and if he had kept Randall rather than doing anything else to him, what was he planning on doing now that he had stripped him of his defenses? Was he planning on experimenting with him, like some type of laboratory animal? Or was he going to dissect him?

Hoping that it wasn't the latter he was considering, Randall slowly raised his head as the man removed one of his instruments from the table in front of him. He held it up to the light for a few moments, then nodded his head and lowered it. Noticing the fact that it was a syringe, Randall felt highly uncomfortable, and thus slowly tried to move himself further back into the cage. The chains, however, refused to let him do so, and he finally sighed in frustration and gave up, as the man came over toward his cage, syringe in hand.

Randall wasn't at all pleased with the sight of this, and as the man drew closer to the bars of his cage he gave a low warning snarl, and the fronds atop his head pricked; he would've showed his teeth as well if he could open his mouth—which he couldn't due to the numbness he felt in his jaw. The man paused to look at him; he didn't look the least bit terrified, then slowly lowered his gaze down to Randall's arm. He stared at it from all angles for a moment, as if examining it, then finally nodded and reached into his lab coat pocket.

From within it the monster could see that the man had withdrawn some type of large rubber band, which he managed to tie around the desired spot on the creature's arm, and rather tightly, at that. Needless to say, Randall always disliked the fact of being touched with a foreign object, and thus tensed as the man managed to get the knot in order. He could do little or nothing to stop the man's procedure, and in this case "little" wasn't enough. He slowly coiled back as the man applied a cotton swab to a particular spot—the spot where his joint was, namely—then removed it and immediately inserted the syringe into his arm.

Randall cringed again, and shook slightly as the man slowly put the syringe to work, allowing a thick, greenish substance to fill the main vial. There were a few stabs of pain in-between this procedure—for Randall, anyway—and needless to say he didn't like the fact that the man was sticking a seemingly contaminated item underneath his skin, either. He knew that it was useless to pull away, however, and he couldn't attack…

After about half a minute, the man finally nodded and removed the syringe needle from his arm. Setting the item to the side, he then reached out and removed the band, then stuck it back in his pocket and turned his back to the lizard creature. Randall examined his arm for a few moments, to make sure that there wasn't any type of after-effect associated with this action, but he saw no symptoms of any sort. Emitting a long sigh of relief, he gingerly rubbed the spot where the syringe had entered, then looked over toward the area that the man had walked into.

Glaring in anger the entire time, he could now see that the man was holding the contents of the syringe up to the light, examining it with one eye shut. He sighed, then lowered the syringe and reached over to his side, removing one of the vials near him from the tabletop; he then held it up in front of him, and stuck the syringe needle in through the top, taking care not to disturb the contents of the syringe any further.

As he held both items in place, the substance slowly disappeared from the syringe and ran into the vial, at a rather quick pace. Within a few seconds, the entire contents of the syringe had been emptied into the vial, and the man tossed the syringe aside, into a nearby wastebasket behind the table, not wanting anything more to do with it. He then focused his concentration on the vial, and once again held it up to the light, shaking it a few times to make sure that he could see everything within the vial.

After a few moments, he finally shook his head and lowered it. "This is the most peculiar blood sample I've ever seen," Randall heard the man mutter to himself. "I've truly never seen anything like it." He looked down at the vial, then shook his head again and turned his back from Randall's gaze yet again. "I'm going to need to run it for tests. Something has to be wrong with my procedure. This doesn't even appear earthen."

After he said this, he then walked behind the computers and disappeared from view. As soon as his footsteps had died out, Randall sighed again, then slowly raised himself back up, but he soon found that he had a bit of trouble doing so. Having his blood drawn from him was something entirely new, and he didn't like it one bit…especially when that human was about to run it for tests. If the man found out that the blood came from a monster…

"You're doing it again, Randall," he said to himself, rubbing at his wrists; the chains were beginning to pain him. "Okay, so you may be in a bit of a crisis life-wise, but that gives you no reason to jump to conclusions…anyway, I need to start thinking about other things. Like how to get out of this toxic waste dump, for example." He rubbed at his wrists with more force. "Ugh…what type of metal are these chains made of?" He thought some more. "Maybe, if they aren't any type of durable metal, I could possibly free myself from them. But how am I supposed to figure out…?"

"Daddy!"

"Oh, no," Randall muttered to himself, as he stopped rubbing his wrists and looked over toward what seemingly appeared to be the entrance to the laboratory. "Not that annoying kid again…"

Sure enough, it was Jeremy, and he had now entered the lab, carrying some sort of thick book under one arm. He was now out of his pajamas and in place was wearing a white lab coat, like his father's, and black sneakers. He stopped in the center of the room, pausing to take a quick glance at Randall, who shot him a threatening gaze and snarled at him angrily. At this, Jeremy quickly broke his gaze and looked over toward the computers, where a few beeping and whirring noises were sounding from, and quickly ran over to the first computer.

"Dad!" Jeremy exclaimed, leaning over to the side a bit. "What are you doing? Did you manage to get the sample okay? What's your experiment planning to be? You never told me any of that—"

"Jeremy, I'm trying to work!"

_Thank you_, Randall thought, rolling his eyes. He had almost crossed his arms, but upon discovering that the chains were too short for him to even get one arm on the opposing side over his back well enough, he didn't do so. Jeremy silenced himself, then slowly walked over to the table and set his book down on the tabletop, taking care not to disturb any of the scientific instruments set upon it.

Upon finishing this task, the boy then walked back over to where his father was currently working, then placed his hands behind his back and said, trying to sound quiet, "So…did you manage to finish checking the blood sample yet, or what?"

There was a pause, then the beeping and whirring noises finally died away, and the man emerged from behind the computers. He cast a short glance at Randall before concentrating his gaze on the boy in front of him. "The blood sample came out normal, much to my surprise," he explained, putting his hands in his pockets. "The cell structure could pass for the normal reptilian build, but the coloring and plasmatic alignment is all off. I don't know why, or how…" He stared at Randall again. "At first glance I thought that he was a foreign creature, but if his blood is so close to resembling an average animal's I doubt that's the case."

"So, what is he, daddy?"

The father shook his head again. "I don't know, Jeremy," he informed him. "Right after you tranquilized him I decided upon looking through every reptilian biology book that we had. My results were unsuccessful; the closest thing that I managed to find that resembled the thing was the common chameleon." He looked over at Randall with rather shifty eyes. "Which could explain why he was able to blend into the background so perfectly when I fought him."

Randall snarled again. The man smirked, then turned back to his son and finally finished, "There's a fine chance that he could be either a mutant or a hybrid, but either way, if the blood structure is normal I seem to see no risks in copying his genetic structure. Now that I have the proper sample for such a task, I can successfully manage to cross and clone him without any dangers."

"You're going to clone him?"

"I do believe that's what I said, Jeremy. I've been looking for another animal to cross for weeks, and now that this thing suddenly appeared in your room I figured that it would be the fastest and easiest way to settle my debt." He removed his hands from his pockets and began to walk over to the table yet again. "I have a third blood sample, now, and because of that I can successfully manage to create a clone structure."

"But, daddy, remember what happened the _last_ time you cloned something?"

At hearing this the man flinched for a short second, as if recalling a painful memory, then fixated his gaze on the boy and said, rather harshly, "I know very well what happened last time, and I can assure you that the error that occurred last time will _not_ happen again." 

This voice tone now caught Randall's attention; he slowly reared his head up and stared at the two in curiosity as the man took two other vials from the tabletop, then examined them in the light before sticking them into his pockets. He then turned his back to Jeremy and began to walk off to the area beyond the computers yet again. "I'm now going back to splice the genetic structures of these three, and if you even make _one mention_ of what happened before one more time—"

"I'm sorry, daddy," the boy apologized, scraping one of his feet across the floor. There then was a loud sigh from the man, and his footsteps finally died out completely. Jeremy waited until there was silence, then he took his book from the tabletop and walked out of the laboratory, leaving Randall alone to wallow in his thoughts.

__

So that's why he decided to imprison me, were his first thoughts. _He wants to create a clone, and he needed a third blood substance, so he chose mine. Thank God my cell structure passed as normal, or else it was highly likely that he would dissect me…but even if my cell structure _did_ pass as normal, that doesn't mean that his little experiment will come out entirely safe. I've heard of mental blunders occurring in hybrids because the cell structure of one of the sampled organisms was improper…_

He shifted his weight to the other side and continued to think. _Then again, why should I care? By the time I get out of this dump—if I ever do—I won't even have to worry about the clone itself, nor whether it may have mental blunders or not. After all, the first thing it'll probably turn to is the humans, and not myself nor any of the other monsters in the area where I reside. Then again…_he paused in his thoughts for a moment. _Then again, if I manage to somehow unlock that experimental closet and get back to the factory, what if the clone follows? What happens then? If it turns out to be a destructive killing machine, I'll have another thing coming, but if it's a harmless one, I won't have much trouble at all…although if it looks anything like me I may have my reputation ruined._

But it's highly unlikely, either way, that the clone will form itself and manage to get out before I myself get back to Monstropolis. By what I've read in my past years, it takes a normal clone days to fully form itself into an actual copy, and I'm plotting my escape tonight. If it goes through, I won't have to worry about the clone at all. If it knows not about the world of monsters, it's also highly unlikely that it'll manage to find the closet while we're still at work, and I'll be safe for the time being. But then again…he paused yet again. _If it has a third of my genetical structure, won't it know that it's a third monster?_

He shook his head, then slumped back down to the ground, staring at the metallic walls of his cage. _Cool it, Randall. The only thing you need to worry about is whether or not you can manage to pull this escape thing through. And, knowing my sense of timing, it would be best if I should do it tonight. But for now, all I have to do is patiently wait…_

***

It seemed like an eternity when the man finally quitted his work and retired to his bedroom for the night. Randall, who had been asleep for most of the time that the man had been working, had awoke about an hour before the man had shut down the laboratory—the main parts, of it, anyway—for the night, and thus had pretended to still be asleep while the man walked past the cage on his way out. While he had done this act, the man had stopped near his cage, looking at him rather indignantly.

"Mutant," he muttered under his breath, before he had walked across the remainder of the lab and had left through the doorway. As soon as the door had slammed behind him, Randall stirred, then slowly rolled over and hoisted up his upper body. The chains tugged on him slightly, but he ignored it this time. In a few moments' time, he knew, the chains would be off of him, and he would be free to try and find a way to get the closet door back open.

Lowering his head to the point where the chain around his neck no longer bothered him, he looked over at the first chain around his upper left wrist, and, deciding that the first thing to do was to test his theory, lowered his head down to the point where he was in front of the chains, then, ignoring the numbness he still slightly felt in his jaw, opened his mouth, then bit down on the link nearest his wrist—hard.

Sure enough, the chain broke in two the moment his teeth placed full force, and the remainder fell to the floor with a quiet _CHIINNNK_ sound. Randall grinned, then raised up his lower left wrist and bit on that one as well. This chain, too, snapped in half, and the lizard monster, now certain that it was in the bag for him now, undid the other two chains, then, able to move his upper body any way he pleased, now, unhitched the chains on his feet. That only left one remaining chain—the chain around his neck, which he could not reach, sadly, due to the fact that it connected in the front and ran down—they had made the chain so close to the hitch that it had to run down Randall's upper body in order to get to the floor.

After several failed attempts to bite at the chain, Randall growled, thinking at first that he would not be able to get out of here after all, but after a few moments he recalled past events when other creatures with great strength had to get out of such a predicament. Smiling to himself, he lowered his head, then quickly snapped it upward, with all the force he could muster in that area.

The chain didn't come entirely undone, but that first jerk was enough to pull the metal panel nailed to the floor that held the chain in place loose. Noticing this firsthand, he gave a second jerk, to the point where the panel snapped out of its place entirely, freeing him from the chains entirely—well, for the most part, anyway; the shackles were still around his wrists and neck. It was enough for him, however; he grinned again, then tossed his head back, savoring his moment of freedom for a short time…

Then came the bars of the cage itself; even though he had freed himself from the chains, the bars of the cage were still intact and appeared rather hard to move. After the momentary point where he realized that force was one of the finest ways to remove any obstacle, he took this to mind and thus backed up to the back of the cage, got down onto all eights, then charged forward.

After a few seconds, he slammed into the bars full throttle, and sure enough they were as weak as the chains were when it came to his finely built structure. Two of the bars snapped loose from the cage as he collided with them, and they fell to the ground as he leapt out of the cage, still at high-speed, then landed on the floor—still on all eights, sliding across and slowing to a halt underneath the table.

Panting, he looked around him for a few moments, his chest heaving and his eyes narrowed dangerously, then slowly came to and got up from underneath the table, slowly drawing himself up to the point where he was on all fours. He looked around for a moment, then his gaze came on a thin stack of papers on the tabletop, near the area where the man had selected the vials. Curious, he slowly and cautiously walked up to it, then took the paper on the top of the pile and skimmed through it:

**Cloning Test #03**

__

Vials selected:

No. 1 Black Panther

No. 2 King Cobra

No. 3 [Creature unidentified]

"They're just notes," Randall muttered to himself as he tossed the paper aside. He knew now what the vials selected were, but he was unknowing of what any of those mentioned animals were (except himself, of course) and thus was not interested. He had other more important things to look onto, anyway, such as how he was going to manage to find a way out of the lab without possibly setting off an alarm and awakening either Jeremy or the man again. After what happened last time, he didn't want to relive such an experience.

He was just thinking over how he was to do this when his gaze fell upon the area beyond the computers. He had never seen that part of the laboratory, where the man did all of his work; just the front part was familiar to him. Despite the risks that he was taking, he couldn't help but wonder if there was possibly another door that led out into the house back there, and after a few moments of thinking his curiosity finally got the better of him yet again. Drawing himself forward, he slowly began to advance to the area behind the main computer system, making sure to look in all directions for any sign of disturbance within the much-too-quiet area he was in.

When he saw nothing, he lowered his head—the fronds atop it flattened in caution—and he narrowed his eyes further. Taking another step or two forward, he finally made a noise that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a growl, dropped down onto all eights yet again, and bolted down the space between the machinery, keeping his head lowered, running with all the strength he could muster at this precise moment. When he arrived into yet another open space, he screeched to a stop, but not before sliding across the floor and colliding with something near him. A quick shock of pain passed through his body before he bristled, then shook it off and slowly removed himself from the spot where he had crashed.

At first he was angry with the thing that he had crashed into, but upon staring at the floor it quickly faded, for he noticed that the object he had collided with—whatever it was—cast off a dim, yellow light; it was spilling across the floor and reflecting off several metal plates near the machinery. There were also a few dim beeping and pumping noises to be heard, but the main thing that confused the lizard creature was that why this machine was still on. And why was it so far back into the laboratory like this…?

He decided to answer his question logically—by turning around to face the thing that was casting the light off. Upon finally catching full view of what he was looking at, his eyes widened, and he nearly jumped backward. However, he did not do so, and the only thing close to a shocked reaction was him shouting, "Good Lord almighty!" before realizing his mistake and bringing his hand to his mouth.

The object he had collided with was indeed a machine, but it was the thing inside the machine that was the most intriguing. The machine was a containment tube, the exact same kind that some use to keep people in suspended animation (the fluid-filled way, naturally), and the light was being given off, it showed, by the liquid within, which was indeed a bright yellow-green color. But the thing inside the tube was what had caught Randall's attention, and it was only natural that it had.

The creature suspended within the tube appeared to be a mirror image of Randall, except it was entirely jet-black, save a few gray areas on the back and underbelly. Its eyes were closed, and its first pair of arms was crossed over its chest, while the other three pairs hung limply, as if dead. Its head was lowered, and its tail was curled around its lower body. Its teeth were not to be shown full view, but to the side Randall could clearly see that its lip had been pulled back there, exposing several white incisors that looked like they could puncture titanium alloy. It also appeared to have a more muscular build anatomy-wise, although one could not notice from a distance.

_Whoa…get a hold of yourself. Is this my clone? Did the man really manage to get this much work done in the few hours that I slept?_ Were Randall's first questions to come to mind. _And why does it look so much like me if I was crossed with two other animals in order to make this…this monstrosity?_

He refused to allow himself to think any more as he dropped back down onto all fours. "It doesn't matter to me, either way," he muttered to himself. "Sure, there's a fine chance that it probably _is_ my clone, but what's the point in thinking about it if it isn't going to inflict any harm upon me? It'll take days for that thing to awaken, if I'm scientifically correct." He began to slink away from the area and head toward another set of machinery, getting his mind off of the clone and back onto the previous subject. "I'm sure that there's a door back here…did I miss one while I was in that area of previous machinery or something? Best double check…"

Right when he disappeared, however, the clone's facial features twitched for a few seconds, before remaining completely still again. There was another moment of absolute silence afterward, but it didn't last for long, because after a few moments the clone began to twitch again. This went on for several moments before the creature's left eyelid finally opened partway, revealing a dark, menacing, blood red eye…


	3. Chapter Three

****

THE ANNIHILATION

By Grand High Idol

CHAPTER III

The first thing that the clone saw was yellow. All around him, surrounding him, pumping its way through his system. Upon taking a first breath, though, the liquid rushed directly into his lungs—he could now use them, being somehow quickly fully developed; he choked, coughed a few times, then narrowed his eyes and, sensing that there had to be another way, closed his eyes again and shot his first pair of hands outward, slamming them directly into the glass wall in front of him. The sound of shattering glass then echoed throughout the area, as the clone—covered head to tail with the bright yellow liquid—fell from the tube—snapping several of the wires that suspended it, and landed directly onto the floor with a loud _KA-THUD_…and thus felt his first taste of pain so early in his lifetime.

Like anyone else, he hated the feeling that pain brought to him, and he shuddered for a few moments before lying still, allowing the liquid to drip off of him and form a large puddle of the substance, then pushing his upper body up, supporting himself by his arms, and glancing around curiously.

His surroundings fascinated him. Never before had he seen such machinery, never before had he known of light and darkness, never had he even sensed the presence of other living things in the air…until this very moment of his first breath. But beyond his fascination lay something more…he had the urge to do the task that he felt he was created for…and his first thoughts were exploring his new surroundings and trying to find any suitable source of information that would manage to tell him where he was, and what he was doing here. Willing to do whatever it took to discover himself, he brought himself up on all fours, but, feeling rather awkward, dropped back down to all eights again, and dashed off at top speed in the direction of the front of the laboratory.

Here was where his panther instincts kicked in. He could now find that he could quickly maneuver through the lab's machinery without much trouble, and rather gracefully, at that. It only took a few seconds for him to gracefully land—on all eights, naturally—in the front of the lab. He halted himself by extending his fingers and brandishing what was contained in them—long, silver-colored, razor-sharp claws, something that Randall did not possess, currently. By digging them deep into the floor (which was part marble and another part linoleum) he managed to come to a quick and successful stop, before tilting his head back, stretching, before looking over in the direction of the table.

Curious, he slowly paced over to the tabletop, then drew himself up, in time to see the stack of papers that Randall had looked at earlier. Never having seen papers before, he slowly reached one of his hands toward the stack, then slowly placed it down atop the second paper in the stack (Randall had removed the first paper earlier) and slowly withdrew it. He then held it up to his face and skimmed across the words. Noticing that he was able to decode what they meant, he slowly began to read the contents of the paper, which had proven to be some type of journal entry, judging by the mistyped printing and appropriate cursive:

_[Date unlisted]_

I have finally decided upon getting out of my debt in scientific studies by choosing to do yet another cloning experiment. I know very well that what happened last time was a disaster, but this time I have made sure not to make any judgmental errors whatsoever. The experiment vials involved the blood of a black panther and a king cobra, both very powerful animals in my case, along with the blood of a third selected creature. The creature I came across was unknown to my knowledge, but it appeared rather strong, not to mention odd, thus I sampled its blood and cloned it along with the other two vials.

After several hours, my cloning had been proven successful. The creature came out nicely, and after running several structures of its brain I did not find any chances of a mental blunder occurring—that is, if I keep the clone from discovering that it is indeed a copy of three other animals—most of the blood came from the third selection, but it was the other two that helped make it what it was nonetheless. The clone does not seem to have a chance of discovery until the day it is fully developed, which, judging by my scientific studies, will not be for another week, at most. It is a second-rate copy compared to my previous works, but it will have do in order for my debt to pay off.

Either way, I'm sure that with the clone—if the original ever does manage to make its escape—I can win the Nobel Peace Prize for scientific studies and anatomy…not to mention the fact that I have discovered a new type of creature. I am not sure if it is either a mutant or a hybrid, but either way…

This was all that the clone needed to read in order to fully decode its future. Having a rather high intelligence quotient for something of its type, it understood word for word what every meaning of the note meant, and a new type of emotion burned inside him, now—hatred. Pure, cold hatred, the type of hate that he had never felt before—of course, he had only been alive for a few moments, but something like this to arrive to his brain this early was uncanny. If he was to be treated like nothing more than a toy—an _object_—why did he feel the need to stay around? If these things listed in this entry were true, what would he get out of it? What would become of him? Would they only respect him because he was a hybrid, or was there something more?

There had to be something better than what was offered. There had to be.

Feeling rather crushed, he dropped back down onto all eights, in time to see something out of the corner of his eye—a glint of silver from off to his right. A wave of confusion now passing over him, he slowly drew his head up, his eyes studying the scene to his right, until he saw the flash of silver yet again. Noticing that it came from somewhere near the broken object (the cage, in more common terms, that Randall had escaped from earlier), he cocked his head to the side, then slowly slunk up to the nearest area where he had seen the flash. Noticing it yet again—it was now indeed very close—he flattened himself against the ground, then twitched a few times before raising himself back up, and finally catching a good glimpse of what he had been searching for.

It was, of course, one of the fallen bars from the cage itself, and now that Randall had touched it—rammed into it—his scent was now strongly upon its surface. The clone, having an acute sense of smell due to his DNA structure, noticed it, of course, and, wanting to get a stronger hold of this foreign scent, slowly took a step or two forward, then stuck out his forked tongue near the bar, and quickly drew it back in before further thoughts ensued. Yes, it was indeed a new scent—but from the back of his brain it seemed oddly familiar, although his senses told him that he had never smelt it before in his life. Something was wrong…it didn't make any sense…

Even so, the clone was willing to determine the scent. Using his tongue to pick up the scent again, he halted in place for a few moments, then twitched his tail a few times before finally turning around. He could recognize it on the ground, now…and his senses told him that the bar wasn't the only thing that contained it. He could clearly sense that it had left a trail, and it was leading directly into the machinery, supposedly near the area where he had been cloned. He wondered why he had never noticed it before.

Now, very much like a dog, he turned around and followed it, keeping his gaze locked dead ahead but stopping every now and then to pick it back up. Within a few moments he had led himself directly into the hallway, where he picked it up again…it seemed fresher this time. Turning to the left, he narrowed his eyes, then slowly stalked into Jeremy's bedroom, heading directly for the closet, which had been shut moments earlier by Randall himself…

***

"Geez, Mike, Randall's been gone for hours."

Upon hearing these words out of his partner and best friend's mouth, Mike turned his gaze up toward the large, blue monster; he seemed rather unimpressed. Fungus, Randall's loyal Scare Assistant, was still standing near the computer monitor, nearest to the experimental door. Waternoose had left a long time ago to report to the Shredders that the door was unsafe (being that Randall had been gone for nearly a day, now) and Fungus himself appeared rather worried. Sullivan was slightly shocked, not to mention curious, about whether or not the door's legend had been true or not, but Mike was unfazed. He had never really enjoyed Randall's company, and he was relieved at the moment's peace and thought that he could get through his mind.

"Oh, come on," Mike told his friend, adjusting his blue hard hat. "It's only natural that the braggart finally got what he—I mean, uh, take to mind that he _was_ taking a few risks when he offered to go through that door in the first place…"

"Yeah, I've gotten that part just fine," Sullivan reassured him, leaning against the control panel nearest his door. "But honestly, Mike, it's unnatural for someone like Randall to go in somewhere and never come back out. Remember that one time in high school when someone accidentally locked him in the supply closet…?"

"Ho, yeah," Mike replied, snickering to himself as he relived that moment. "He was left in there for hours…no one even opened up the supply closet once during that class, and the substitute we had that day didn't know what that pounding and cursing behind the door meant…not to mention he didn't even get out until after the school had closed down."

"Yeah, Mike, but take to mind that all the doors were bolt-locked," Sully pointed out. "He manages to slip out of nearly every risk he takes. He's like that magician we once saw down at the curb…I forgot his name…but he was an excellent escape artist…"

"Sully, I think that we have more important things to do rather than talking about past high school moments," Mike finally sighed. "Now, if you would kindly move from the control panel, I can activate your door in time to—"

They were cut short by the sound of a door clicking open—their station was the one nearest to where the experimental door had been placed—and at this noise they both turned around toward the direction of the door, in time to see Randall slowly walk out. He was bruised from earlier attempts to halt himself in the laboratory, and he walked with a slow gait and a slight limp in his step, but other than that he appeared in perfect condition. Sullivan had a puzzled look on his face, while Mike appeared rather surprised at the sudden appearance of the lizard monster.

He almost blurted out "What are _you _doing here?!", but hesitated before doing so, and instead said, sounding rather sarcastic and casual, "Hello, _Randy_. Did you have fun in that room, or should I not mention it?"

Randall noticed him at once, and limped away from the doorway angrily, muttering things under his breath. However, when he passed Mike, he shot a dark glare at him, then said, "_Shut it_, Wazowski."

He shot another glare at Sullivan, then clenched his teeth in pain and annoyance and limped off. Fungus stared after him, then finally broke into a run toward him, trying his hardest to catch his partner's attention. Randall seemed to be ignoring him, however, and continued to limp down the Scare Floor, past the groups of monsters that were currently at work, then limped out of the area altogether, with Fungus still trailing behind. Sullivan and Mike stared after him for a while, then looked at each other for a brief moment before finally speaking.

"So…I guess that I should report this to Mr. Waternoose," Sullivan said, rather slowly.

"Yeah," Mike said, sounding a bit far off. "You go do that…we'll continue after you get back from it."

Sullivan slowly nodded, then began to walk off down the Scare Floor after Randall and Fungus, his destination being the spot where Waternoose was planning to report (he knew most likely that he'd probably be near the Wall of Fame, knowing that Schmitty and Needleman worked there as janitors when it wasn't their shift to be shredding doors). The experimental door, as noticed earlier, had still been carelessly left open; Randall was in too much pain to even bother the thought of closing it, Fungus was too focused on getting Randall's attention, and Mike and Sullivan had only given the door one glance in time to see Randall arrive out of it. Thus, it was no problem for anything from the human world to come in through the door. However, the thing that indeed came through was not, in any way, human.

It was too busy on the floor to even give a moment's notice. No one saw the black figure slink out of the doorway. No one saw it quickly dart behind the nearest computer monitor. And no one saw it eye the exit to the Scare Floor, a hungered glare in its glowing red eyes…

***

Randall was still in much pain as he limped down the hallway, shortly afterward passing Waternoose, who was arguing with Schmitty and Needleman about the experimental door; the two didn't seem to believe that Randall had gone through a door and hadn't come back out, not even when Waternoose himself told them. They were trying their best to respond as politely as possible, but it was clear that Waternoose was getting frustrated. Randall slowly passed him, pausing to rub at one of his ankles, as Waternoose finally finished up the argument in one of the logical ways for someone of his power to do.

"…And that is _FINAL_!" he shouted at the two before he turned around, his face contorted in annoyance. The first thing he saw, naturally, was Randall, who paused, looking at him rather blankly before Waternoose finally said to him, "Mr. Boggs, you're all right!" He then scuttled up to the lizard monster and briefly shook one of his hands. "Well done. Now, inform me…is that closet door safe, or is it still as dangerous as it was years ago?"

Randall was unable to answer for a moment; he was still a bit dazed from earlier, but after a while he finally shook it off and said, sounding rather grave, "Waternoose, I'd be terribly lying if I said it was, in any way, safe. Why do you _think_ I'm walking with a limp? Because I had fun?!"

Waternoose let go of his hand, then brought his own hand to his chin, as if deep in thought. After a while, he shook his head and said, turning back in the direction of the Scare Floor, "I had a feeling from the start that you would answer that. Well, no matter. After much talk with Schmitty and Needleman they've agreed to shred the door, even though it's not their desired work hour for such a task…what with it being Saturday…" He trailed off before halting, then turning toward Randall. "I just have one more thing to ask you, Mr. Boggs…you were gone for hours, and managed to get back in one piece. Tell me…what exactly did you see behind that door that caused you to turn up like this?"

Randall was silent for a moment, and at first he thought that he should inform the CEO of his experience with the humans—the fight with the man, the blood drawing, the laboratory, his escape, the clone…he knew that Waternoose was one of the very few individuals that he could trust. But he figured that it didn't really matter; the clone, the man, and Jeremy were on the other side of the door, and after it was destroyed he was sure that he would never see any of them again. So why did it matter if he told Waternoose or not? _Besides_, he thought, _it would probably overwhelm him…I was touched with human objects countless times, and after seeing what happened to some of the monsters here that came out with contaminated items stuck to them…_

"It was nothing, Waternoose," he finally answered after this moments' hesitation. "I just kind of…stepped wrong. That's why I'm limping. There's nothing that bad on the other side of the—wait…" He couldn't say that after what he had told Waternoose earlier about it "not being safe", so he had to think up a logical explanation as to why it should be destroyed. "Uh, I was cornered by an attack dog for hours. Chased me directly up a tree outside…took me forever to come down and find the closet door without it finding me…"

_Nice, Randall_, he thought sarcastically to himself. _An attack dog. An ATTACK DOG. Is that the best you can do after all that trouble you went through? Surely you could've thought up something else…_

But Waternoose seemed satisfied with his answer; after all, he didn't know what had happened in the laboratory hours earlier. "Ah, a common problem for many," he sighed, turning back around and beginning to descend down the hallway again. "Many of us have had to deal with attack dogs, but if this one is as troublesome as you say it is…"

"It is, Waternoose, it is," Randall replied sheepishly, still angry with himself for thinking up such a pathetic excuse to say in front of the CEO. _Great. Well, at least he bought it, so I guess you're in the clear for now…good thing that everyone around these parts hates dogs…_

Then he himself turned around and began to limp down the hallway again…however, his momentary halt was enough for Fungus to catch up with him, which was the last thing he wanted in his weakened state. The monster didn't notice this, however, and instead ran up behind him and said, rather loudly, "Randall!"

Randall jumped, then whipped around and hissed angrily at Fungus, "I'm…right…_here_!" through tightly clenched teeth. Fungus seemed a bit taken aback for a moment, and he backed up a few steps, but after a few moments it wore off, and he shifted the weight of his clipboard to one hand and declared, "Randall, you've been missing for hours. What happened back there to make you stall so long? You usually don't do things like this…"

Randall growled again; this was the same question Waternoose had asked him earlier, and at the moment he didn't really feel like telling Fungus, either. He merely turned back around, then began walking again and sighed, "Listen, Fungus, what happened back there was something rather intense, and I don't feel like talking about it right now." He cringed a bit as another wave of pain shot through his bruises, then said, "Now, if you would kindly _get away from me_, I'd like to go lie down before returning to what I had originally been doing."

Fungus blinked again, then slowly backed away, turned around, and began heading down the hallway in the opposite direction. Randall sighed again, then finally gave in to slumping a bit as he walked; it may have looked like he was defeated, but it really did help ease the pain in his bruises. And he didn't really have to worry about anyone seeing him, either; except for him the hallway was entirely empty at the time.

Or so he thought. He was just about to turn the corner to head toward the main floor of the building itself when a black blur shot by him, nearly smacking him backward, and landing gracefully on the floor. Randall let out a yelp of surprise, then backed up a few feet as the shape slowly drew itself up, keeping all eights on the ground, and stared directly at him…its cold red eyes burning directly into his emerald green ones…the silver patches on its back glimmering in the light that the overhead ceiling fixtures gave off…its graceful figure poised in a ready to fight position…

"Sweet mother of—" Randall began, his mouth dropping open slightly, but the other gear turning in the back of his head prevented him from finishing his first sentence, and starting another one. "What—what are you doing here!"

The clone's eyes glimmered for a moment, then it finally pulled its lips back, exposing its teeth, which were bright white and, like Randall's, razor sharp. It slowly raised itself up further, then coiled itself back and hissed, in a low, raspy tone, "_The only thing I was created to do_."

Before Randall could have a chance to react, the clone shot forward, and its fist slammed into the side of his head—hard. Randall cringed slightly; his hit was strong…it felt like he had been struck with a twenty-pound brick. Naturally, the nerves in his skull couldn't take a force like this, and before he had a chance to protest or even aim a hit back in the clone's direction, his legs buckled out from under him and he fell to the ground, the scenery around him turning the same color as his attacker…black. He sighed, the last thought to rush through his head before he lost all consciousness being that this was the second time in two nights that he had had to go through something like this…

As the lizard monster's body went numb, the clone smiled evilly, then slowly reached its first pair of hands down toward the still form and slowly hoisted him up, rather roughly. He then raised himself to all fours and, still carrying the body, shot off into the darkness…

***

Needless to say, Randall came to from the blow faster than he had from the dart. He opened his eyes slowly, not wanting to move…his head felt like it had been severely dented…but after a few moments he realized that he not only didn't _want_ to move, he _couldn't_ move. No matter how hard he tried, the only thing he could managed to successfully move was his head and neck. Nothing else seemed to be working for him; finally coming to his full senses at noticing this, he curiously turned his head toward his arms—and saw, sure enough, that they had been shackled tightly to a nearby support bar. His other limbs were bound the same way (if you don't include his second and third pair of hands, which were tied behind his back), and, looking around him, he now noticed that he had been bound in one of the factory's storage rooms.

He was just about to wonder at why this was when he heard the sounds of scraping from directly in front of him. Looking in that direction, he turned his gaze up diagonally in time to see the clone standing near one of the wooden crates used to contain the scream canisters, its back to him and its tail twitching every now and then. Randall narrowed his eyes, then growled and said, to the clone, "What's going on here?"

The clone paused to turn and look up at him, then it said, in the same voice tone that it had used earlier in the hallway, "I have brought you here for a purpose that I shall kindly explain later." He turned back to face the unknown object that was near the wooden crate, then paused and added, "Oh yes, and, don't even bother trying to free yourself from those chains. I found them in the backroom…they're made of black diamond steel. If that can't contain you, I don't know what can."

"What is this?" he said, trying to get himself in a comfortable position, but it was no use; the clone had indeed been right when he said that they were made out of black diamond steel. "What are you doing here? I thought that you were supposed to be back in the laboratory. You're a _clone_, after all…"

The clone's body tensed for a moment upon hearing this, then it whipped around and snarled, "Not anymore, you insolent fool! Not anymore!" He panted a few times to allow himself to recover, then said, "I'm more than a hybrid, something that your mediocre intelligence would never understand. I am just like one of you…only much, much better." He gritted his teeth. "My name will not be referred as a mere object. My name is Tron, and if you have any objections against it I shall kindly make do with you as I please."

"I have nothing against that," Randall told him, still sounding highly peeved, "But I do have a problem with you knocking me upside the head, then carrying me down to the storage room, shackling me to the support bars, and binding me with _black diamond steel_, of all metals!" He tugged at his shackles again. "What is your intention?"

Tron snarled, then turned back around and said, "I have come into this world for a good reason, and, as I was stating before, there is a logical explanation as to why I brought you here. You see…" The scraping sounds resumed yet again—"I am in this world to do one and only one thing…destroy it and everyone that has to do with it. Even in this world of odd creatures I somehow know that I'll never be accepted." He paused in his scraping. "Thus, they shall die. They shall all die. But I cannot let them know that I look like you, or else they'll think that there will be two of us, which will not go over quite well plan-wise. There cannot possibly be two of us in the same location."

He then turned around, lowered his hands, then extended his claws, which had been sharpened to the point where they were sword-sharp; they even included the traditional sound effect of _SHINNNG_ as they shot from the clone's fingertips. "Thus, one of us must be eliminated. And it's not going to be myself this time, _Boggs_."

"This is pathetic," Randall shot back, tugging at his shackles yet again. "You're going to kill me just because I stand in your way of killing others? Come _on_. Why do you even feel the need, anyway? With all intentions, _I'm_ probably more likely to kill them all than _you_ are."

"_Shut it_, you green-eyed freak show reject!" Tron snarled angrily, a glint of anger flashing through his eyes and his pupils narrowing. Randall seemed a bit shocked by this; no one had ever told him to "shut it" before, and he thus wasn't prepared for a comeback. The angered glint slowly faded from Tron's eyes, and he then turned around and hastily scanned the ground. He then turned around to face the lizard monster. "My sincerest apologies, Randall. It appears that I have a short temper this evening…" He shook his head. "You just don't understand my mission, do you? I told you I am here for a reason. That reason is to kill you all. And I'm going to have to force you to accept the fact that you're going to have to be destroyed in order for my plan to go through correctly."

Randall snorted in disgust. "You can't _force_ me to do anything."

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Tron replied; he then picked up a sheet of metal from the ground and held it up in front of himself. "You'll have no choice but to give in to my demands, and if you somehow manage not to…"

He then raised his free hand, then brought his claws down into the top of the steel, running them easily down the metallic sheet. He then released it, and it fell to the ground in three separate pieces—the clone's claws had sliced through them as easily as if they had been paper. Randall's eyes grew wide as he looked at the pieces on the floor, then he looked back up at Tron, who finished, rather calmly, "You'll see that I can be very _persuasive_."

If this didn't sound like a threat to Randall, he didn't know what was. Swallowing hard, he drew himself back slowly as the clone finally shot across the floor, then drew itself up to its five-foot height in front of him; his face was about three or four feet from his, now, and his clawed hands were raised. Randall drew back some more, his eyes wide, as the clone slowly raised up one of his hands, then brought it directly in front of Randall's chest; the tips were precious inches from his skin. He looked down at the weapons, but he could do nothing against them, he knew; not as long as he was shackled to the support beam like this…

"Breathe your last, Boggs," the clone snarled, his gaze fixated directly on his. "Breathe your last."

Randall shuddered and shut his eyes tightly, but he knew that it was no use against the clone's claws; they would soon be brought down upon him and kill him within a second. Tron, now quite pleased at seeing his DNA original start to tremble in fear, smiled evilly, then raised up his arm and was about to bring it down upon Randall's breastbone when—

_THA—KKKRRRRRIISSSSSSHHHHH_!

Tron winced as the sound of shattering glass filled the otherwise silent air around the two lizard monsters, disrupting their thoughts, and, of course, disrupting Tron's moment of inflicting death upon Randall. Randall, rather puzzled, hesitantly opened one eye, in time to see his clone tear his gaze away from him and settle it near the backroom, in the area where the noise had come from. His tail twitched, and he appeared rather tense, as the glass gave its few last _KRRISHH_ noises, then the silence resumed.

Although the silence continued for quite a few moments, Tron continued to stare out into the back of the storage room, as if half-expecting something to be there. Indeed, he was proven right—someone was in the storage room with them—for after those few moments of silence, a rather nervous voice came up from behind a pile of crates in the back:

"Ho boy. The CEO won't be pleased with that…"

At hearing another voice besides his and Randall's in the room, Tron snarled angrily, then slowly drew his claws back in (much to Randall's relief) and at the same speed dropped back down onto all eights, the fronds atop his head flattened back and his teeth bared. Randall now opened the other eye and watched his genetic copy as it slowly took a step forward, then stuck its tongue out to test the air, snarled, then shot off at breakneck speed toward the back of the room. Before he disappeared beyond the crates, however, he paused to turn around and glare at the lizard monster.

"I'm coming back for you next," he snarled, "once I deal with this rude interruption."

"Oh, joy," Randall muttered sarcastically to himself as the clone left the area. Looking up at the ceiling, he sighed, knowing that it was indeed useless to struggle out of black diamond steel bonds…that was the strongest known metal in Monstropolis. And it was rather rare to find in areas around the city, too…

That's when something clicked on inside his head. If Tron was a newcomer, why did he know exactly where everything was, and where to look for it? He had taken Randall into the storage room almost automatically, as if he knew that not many stopped by there regularly on work days. He knew that the support bars were nearly hidden behind all the boxes that were stacked back there. He knew exactly where Randall was heading after he had walked out the door. And he knew precisely where his weakest point was in his head. Not to mention that he knew exactly where to find the shackles that were currently binding him now…

_He knows too much_, Randall thought to himself as he tugged at one of his shackles, although it was proven hopeless. _That's inhumane. He can't suddenly cross over into the monster world and all of a sudden know everyone and everything…or can he? Does he know something that I don't? Or am I just paranoid…?_

"Hey, Randall!"

Randall sighed, rolled his eyes, then looked down at the floor in time to see Fungus, who had arrived at the bottom of the support beam and was looking up at the area where his partner had been shackled (which, rather ironically, was only about two feet or so off the floor). Randall looked down at him for a few moments, then finally said, still sounding a bit annoyed (then again, he seemed to be like that around his Scare Assistant a lot), "Fungus! What in the name of the world are _you_ doing here?!"

"I was walking down the hall when I heard something crash in here," he told the lizard monster. "It was nothing that serious, really. I was just tempted to go check it out at the time…" He looked at Randall again. "By the way, I was just going to ask…why are you shackled to the support beam like that?"

Randall made a pained expression (he appeared to want to smack himself on the forehead more than anything), then replied, sounding more peeved than he had before, "Well, why do you _think_ I'm up here, genius? I couldn't get _up_ here by myself, that's for sure!"

Fungus looked taken aback for a moment, then Randall sighed and said, shaking his head, "Just be so kind as to get me down from here, would you, please?"

"Oh, right, sure," Fungus replied, nodding his head (if his anatomy would even allow it, that is), and walking over to the bottom of the support beam. He then looked around, then looked up at Randall and asked, "Hey, Ran…is there anything around here that I could use to somehow get these chains off the beam itself?"

Randall growled in frustration, then said, "I don't think that anything in here will do, Fungus. The shackles are made of black diamond steel. I don't think that they'll be snapping or breaking anytime soon." He looked at Fungus again, and said, reading the look on his face, "And no, don't try burning through the metal on the support beam. You'll send the whole roof caving in on the both of us."

"So what am I _supposed_ to do?" Fungus asked, holding out his hands in confusion.

Randall thought for a moment, then finally said, "Okay, listen…if you can't break the chains, you have to undo the shackles themselves. If you know how to undo them it won't be that hard."

"Okay, that sounds good," Fungus agreed, nodding. He then walked over to the nearest area where Randall was shackled—namely, his right lower body—and stared at it for a few moments before finally reaching over toward it. "Okay…I think I'll start here. Just doing a few tests…" He felt around the shackle itself for a few moments, then drew back, placed his hand to his head, then felt around the shackle again. "I think…that there's…a hitch…here…aha!"

At this last word, he finally pulled something out from an area in the shackle, and it snapped open, dropping to the ground with a faint _CLINNNK_. Fungus smiled triumphantly, then quickly made his way over to the other shackle, and, after a few moments of searching, undid that one as well. He then tried to climb up the support bar to the upper shackles, but, after failing miserably (one of his anatomy was not intended to climb), decided that it was best to think up another situation. After a few moments, he finally ran toward one of the wooden crates, darted behind it, then slammed his side into it and began to push it toward the nearest support beam.

Randall rolled his eyes at this show of action as Fungus finally managed to get the box over to the support beam; he then climbed atop it and reached for the chain binding Randall's upper right hand. Easily undoing that hitch as well—he was getting the hang of it by now—he allowed it to drop once again, then jumped down from the box and moved it over to the shackle binding Randall's right arm. After undoing that, the lizard creature dropped to the ground, landing rather roughly in the spot between the two support beams, as Fungus jumped down from the box and began to undo the chains binding Randall's other limbs behind his back.

"Whoa," the Scare Assistant remarked as he undid the first set of chains. "How'd you manage to get bound up like this, Ran? I mean, I could understand you getting stuck in the chain links, but this...your entire body is completely bound…"

"I do believe that I noticed that earlier, Fungus!" Randall snapped at him. Fungus blinked a few times, then shook his head and resumed to undoing the second set of chains. When he had gotten those undone, Randall slowly rose to his feet, dusting himself off, as Fungus stood to attention in front of him, his hands behind his back. "Okay, Fungus, let's get out of here. Now."

"Why the hurry?" Fungus asked. Randall glared at him, and he backed up a few steps. "Uh, okay, I can understand why you want to get out of here…but, I'm just curious…who was it that bound you like that in the first place?"

Randall shot him another angered glare as he began to head toward the exit to the storage room. "I told you I don't feel like talking about anything right now," he hissed angrily. "So if you can kindly shut your trap until we get out of here, maybe I'll consider the fact of letting you off the hook on my next work shift."

"Yay," Fungus said blandly as he began to follow his partner out of the main storage room, a slightly depressed gaze on his face. The two left rather quickly, with Randall still tense from what had happened with Tron and Fungus still thinking about how he had freed his partner and hadn't even received a shred of gratitude. That was just a day in the life, he supposed…

Meanwhile, behind the storage boxes in the laboratory, there was a horrible tension lingering in the air as Tron slowly and secretly closed in upon one of the unsuspecting assistant janitors, who had mistakenly dropped some window glass in that area…


	4. Chapter Four

****

THE ANNIHILATION

By Grand High Idol

CHAPTER IV

Slowly and stealthily Tron closed in on the janitor, who apparently did not notice him and was busy trying to clean up the glass on the floor. It had shattered rather badly (hence the noise it made) and thus was scattered all around the area; the janitor was having a rather hard time picking it up, and having to use his bare hands as well (he had not brought a broom with him upon thinking that he wouldn't drop the glass in the first place). Tron slowly crept up to the top of a nearby pile of crates, then raised himself up on all fours and looked down upon the scene, a great look of hunger in his gaze.

It was true that he hadn't eaten a thing since his creation, and because of that he was quite hungry at the time. The sight of live meat (all three chosen DNA samples had been carnivores, so it was only natural that he'd be one as well) made him remember this starving intensity; he slowly ran his forked tongue over his chops before slowly lowering himself, pressing himself down against the top of the crate as he continued to watch the janitor clean up the mess below. He knew that he should not pounce until the time was correct, and right now the janitor seemed rather cautious at the fact that someone might have heard the glass shatter—which someone did.

The janitor had finished picking up half of the shards when he heard a low growl issue from the crate pile adjacent to him. Curious, he looked over in that direction, but saw nothing, and, deciding that he was simply paranoid, shook it off and resumed to cleaning up the glass on the floor. Tron, from above, slowly faded into view from his invisible color pattern, then lowered himself, narrowed his eyes, then, his glare never leaving the janitor, sprung from the crates and headed down toward the janitor's direction.

The janitor noticed him, but sadly didn't react until it was too late. He only had time to stare at the descending black figure, before it landed directly on top of him, sending him down onto the glass-covered floor. The janitor winced as a few shards of cut glass found their way across his back, leaving faint scratches, but at the time that was the least of his problems. He now looked up at the Randall clone as it snarled at him, narrowed its glowing red eyes further, then extended its claws, which now pierced the monster's skin and drew blood. The janitor gave out a weak cry of pain before Tron slowly removed his second pair of limbs from his chest, keeping the first pair pressed down.

The claws dug in further, and the janitor struggled, only to end up paining his scratches further. Tron watched him as he tried to get out of the clone's grip, and after a few moments of gnawing hunger the clone decided to end it for good. Drawing his head back, he emitted a loud sound that sounded like a cross between a roar and a screech, then plunged his head down into the creature's chest, locking his teeth onto the flesh.

The janitor cried out in pain, but the cry was short-lived, for the sudden rush of blood to the throat choked him, disabling his vocal cords completely. Tron continued to keep his hold as the blood slowly began to trickle down the neck, and after a few moments the janitor stopped moving entirely. Pleased with this, Tron released his hold from the neck and slowly drew himself upward, looking down at his kill.

The creature's corpse was now lying completely still, the eyes half-open and the arms spread out to either side. In the neck one could plainly see that there were now three holes in the neck in place of Tron's teeth, and blood was still slowly leaking from the cuts and making its way to the ground, in large drops. The glass was still scattered all around him, like a scene from an old horror movie.

Tron slowly ran his tongue along his teeth, to clear the excess substance from his mouth before closing in on the dead cadaver. Slowly raising himself over it, he opened his mouth again, then plunged his teeth down into a certain area of the corpse and ripped off a rather large piece of the creature. Swallowing it whole, he immediately bit into it again, gnawing at the meat hungrily, not caring a night about the blood that was slowly beginning to run down his neck. (Normally a scene like this would shock anyone, but take to mind that he is a born predator.) For a few moments while eating, he forgot entirely about Randall, whom he thought was still chained to the support beam behind the crates…

***

"I can't let this haunt me forever," Randall told himself as he viewed himself in one of the bathroom mirrors. Although he knew that Tron was still in the storage room, he was still trembling slightly, and his eyes still held the look of fear. He hated himself when he was like this, and was thus trying to cool himself down by trying to decide whether or not to tell anyone in the factory about the clone. "I know that a few of the monsters employed here are trustworthy, but if I tell anyone about Tron it's a fine chance that they won't believe me."

He sighed before running one of his hands through his head fronds. "Sullivan and Wazowski are definitely off my list—they wouldn't believe anything I said for a half-second. I can't tell Waternoose because I already informed him that the thing that caused me to be gone so long was an attack dog (although I wish I could've thought of something better than that)…" He paused in thought for a moment. "The other employees respect me…though not as much as Sullivan…but I don't think that I should tell them, either, or else one of them may report to Waternoose, and…ugh…

"The only one left to tell, the way I see it, is Fungus. But Fungus is such a worrier. If he finds out about Tron, it's likely that he'll follow me around, tell a few more of the employees, maybe even organize the CDA to get rid of Tron…" He shook his head. "I don't see any other option but to keep it to myself. I'm sure that Tron won't pose as much of a threat from now on. I just need to be cautious around any abandoned areas."

He nodded at his reflection and forced a rather weak smile. "That's it, Randall. That's all you need to do. You just need to act casual, and from then on it's all in the bag." He nodded again before turning around and beginning to head out. "It's all in the bag…GAH!"

He gave a surprised shout as Mike suddenly appeared from behind the doorway, looking at him rather oddly. After a few moments of staring at the lizard monster, he finally shifted his clipboard to one side, then said, sounding rather disturbed, "Randall…why were you talking to yourself?"

For a few moments Randall couldn't speak, only stare, but after a while he finally got himself together, then strutted past the round green monster, his head held high and his arms crossed. "It's none of your business, Wazowski," he replied angrily, before heading out of the bathroom itself entirely (secretly hoping, of course, that Mike hadn't fully understood any word of his musings). "I suggest that you keep your misshapen green self out of other's situations, if you know what's good for you."

"Yeah, yeah, sure," Mike muttered as the lizard creature left; he then removed his hard hat and set it down next to one of the sinks. Looking down at his hands, which were stained all over with motor oil, he shook his head. "Boy, talk about one of your worse days," he said to himself. "I've heard of oil problems in some door operators, but this is pathetic. I'll never be able to get this off without a strong soap…" Hoisting himself up, he looked around the top of the sink. "Hopefully someone still left a bar for me to use. I don't see why they keep ignoring those 'Please Don't Eat the Soap' signs…"

As Mike searched the countertop for a decent bar of soap, a few clanking sounds resumed from the toilet in the stall behind him. He ignored them, thinking it was just another problem with the plumbing system, and continued to search for a bar. He continued to ignore the clanking and scraping sounds as they came again, and, after a few thorough searchings of the countertop with no success, he decided that he'd best look for a bar on the floor below the sinks. Without a moment's hesitation, he dropped down onto the floor and began crawling around under the sinks to search for a bar of soap. That was when he heard the noise.

It was faint, at first, and for the time Mike thought that it was just another problem with the plumbing. But he soon found that it was something more, for after a few moments there was a deafening creaking sound, followed by a whirring sound, then a loud _THUNK—KRRRISSSHH_ sound as a seemingly blunt object struck the mirror directly above the green monster, shattering it into a few hundred pieces. Mike froze in place, then quickly grabbed onto the nearest pipeline as pieces of the mirror littered the floor around him.

When the shards finally stopped raining down on the tiled floor, Mike, his eye wide with shock and confusion, slowly released his hold from the pipe and climbed out from underneath the sink, taking care not to cut himself on the shards currently littering the floor, his terrified, not to mention cracked, reflection easily seen in some of the larger bits. 

Looking around the room first, his entire body tense, he wiped some of the nervous sweat off of his forehead, then turned around toward the shattered mirror to see what the object thrown had been. Upon viewing it, his eye grew even wider, for the object had turned out to be a rather large, dangerously jagged, sawblade-shaped motor gear (still embedded into the wall behind the mirror); Mike guessed that it had somehow come loose from inside the stall behind him. Then again, how could it have come loose with such impact as to smash into and shatter the mirror…?

Beginning to tremble slightly, he decided that the best thing to do was to investigate the problem, even though a few thoughts at the back of his head told him otherwise. Swallowing hard, he looked over in the direction of the stall behind him, then slowly began to walk toward it, avoiding the mirror glass that was on the floor (obviously), and, upon arriving in front of the stall door, discovered, to his surprise, that it had been open the entire time he had begun searching for the bar of soap. He wondered why he hadn't noticed that the door was open before; then again, when his mind was set on something else he tended to often miss out on things.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eye for a moment, then finally pushed the bathroom stall door open to the point where it was banging against the other stall door, and looked inside. He saw nothing more than an average toilet in there; he sighed, then slowly took a step or two closer to it, to check if any of the gears had somehow come unhitched from the object itself. He slowly approached the edge of the bowl, then just as slowly cast his gaze down into the water…

"_ROWWRRRRR_!"

"_YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH_!"

Mike screamed and leapt back in surprise as a slender black figure shot out of the water, splashing the walls with the liquid, along with Mike himself. He didn't even care that he had been splashed with unsanitary water; he was too busy gaping in fear at the creature that was in front of him. True to fact, the creature was a slender, black, lizard-like monster that paid a striking resemblance to Randall himself (Tron, no doubt), but Mike, who hadn't overheard a word about Tron—the most he had heard out of Randall during his musings were a few mutterings that he couldn't make out—was terrified of it. For a moment he could only gape in shock at the creature, who stared back at him, its cold red eyes burning into his one. It emitted a low snarl from the bottom of its throat; Mike stammered for a few moments, then finally turned around and began to make a break for it.

As he ran out the bathroom stall, Tron, who was not about to let his next victim get away (although it hadn't been the one he'd expected), leapt out of the toilet and landed on the floor, his eyes still set in a threatening glare. His gaze caught the little green monster running into the locker room; he snarled again, then took off in that direction as well.

Upon entering the locker room, Mike quickly found the nearest locker, then, without even stopping to think of the consequences, quickly leapt in and quickly closed the door after him, making sure to keep it to the point where he'd be able to free himself. Taking care not to push it closed entirely, or open it any further, he remained still for a few moments, then, out of curiosity, slowly stood up inside the locker and looked out at the scene in the locker room through the slits in the upper door.

Through the slits, he could see that Tron had already found his way into the locker room, and was now slowly pacing around the area near the benches, tasting the air with his tongue every now and then. His eyes narrowed dangerously as he passed Mike's locker, and for a moment it seemed that the Randall clone had spotted Mike. Mike froze in place, as Tron stared at the locker, his eyes still narrowed dangerously and his forked tongue slowly running itself over his bright white teeth. Mike trembled at this sight. _Please don't find me_…he prayed to himself. _I swear that I'll try to file my paperwork from now on. I swear that I'll try to at least think up better excuses! Just please, don't let him find me!_

Mike trembled even more intensely as Tron moved his head closer to the slits in the locker door, then paused for a few moments and looked around, as if searching for something. Mike could feel his forehead growing sweaty, but he dared not make any sudden moves; just one might startle the clone into finding him. All he needed to do was wait and watch…and continue to pray that Tron didn't spot him.

Surprisingly, Tron didn't seem to see him—or smell him—at all. The clone, after a few moments of staring at the locker, slowly turned its head away, then tasted the air again, looked around cautiously, almost suspiciously, then dropped down onto all eights and darted out of the room in a faint black streak. Mike stood within the locker for a few more moments, to make sure that Tron was entirely gone, before slowly stepping out and slamming the locker door closed behind him, taking time to wipe the sweat off of his forehead with a shaky hand. He then looked around some more and, panting harshly, began to walk out of the locker room, and toward the exit to the facility itself.

***

"I'm telling you, buddy, it was insane back there!" Mike exclaimed, sitting on his bed. It was now late evening, and Sullivan was sitting next to him, his hands behind his head, looking rather amused, yet at the same time rather exhausted. It had been a rather long day for him, and an unusual one, at that, so all he really wanted to do was get some sleep. But of course, he felt the need to listen to his best friend's story before doing anything else, although he didn't seem to believe it entirely.

"Mike," Sullivan said, still sounding rather exhausted, "tell me the main details of what happened in the locker room again…you saw _what_ in there now?"

"Look, I know that you're going to call me crazy, but I swear to you that I really did see an exact duplicate of Randall leap out of the toilet and try to kill me!" Mike said, his eye wide. "I mean, first it tried to startle me by throwing that hacksaw blade at me, then it leapt out and tried to kill me, so I had to jump in one of the—"

"Mike," Sullivan repeated, resting his head in one hand. "You're just nervous about this whole 'Scare Record' thing, aren't you?"

"See? I told you!" Mike said, holding out his hands in an expressive gesture. "But every bit of it is true! I would never lie to you, Sully; you're my best bud! And I'm telling you, I saw Randall jump out of the toilet with my own…one eye! And I'm pretty sure that it wasn't just a simple hallucination, because it wouldn't have tried to attack me!"

"Mike, what would Randall be doing in the toilet in the first place?" Sullivan asked, raising his eyebrows. "I mean, if that was true he'd probably lose every bit of dignity that he has, and we all know how much he adores his ego. I just don't think that he'd do something like that."

"Yeah, you do have a point there," Mike sighed, nodding his head as he thought, "and a few minutes before the entire incident happened I saw Randall walk out of the bathroom after talking to himself while he was staring in the mirror. The Randall in the toilet seemed pretty well prepared…he couldn't have been in two places at once, could he?"

Sullivan sighed. "Listen, Mike, I don't think that we need to think about this right now. Whether it was Randall or not, or a hallucination or not, we'd best not trouble ourselves with it now. We have the day off tomorrow, but either way I'd enjoy getting up at a time that's still in the morning…" He reached toward the nearby lamp and clicked it off. "We'll discuss this over a cup of coffee tomorrow, okay? Good night, Mike."

There was a pause, then finally a defeated sigh, then Mike's voice responded with, "Good night, buddy."

***

Tron had left the locker rooms shortly after Mike had made his escape, and the Randall clone was now stalking around in the empty hallways, furious with himself for letting his victim get away. Of course, Mike had never intended to be the victim that he wanted to kill; it was supposed to be Randall who was to be attacked. However, he had thought that Randall was still in the bathroom when he leapt out of the toilet—the sight of Mike in front of his face was shocking. Nonetheless, after one kill, there had to be another—being what he was, he was nearly always starving due to his unusual metabolic rate. Hunger pains were now gnawing at him as he stopped, then crawled up onto one of the soda machines and stretched himself out over it.

"What I need is some way to stalk and kill without leaving rarely any blood marks," he muttered to himself as he lay on top of the machine, his eyes half closed. "But I know not any other way. How, I ask, can I carry out such a thing? How? How!"

As he did this, he banged his front fist on the top of the machine, causing it to rattle violently, nearly tipping itself over. However, while it didn't do so, this was enough for one of the metallic gears in the back to come loose (it was an old machine) and hit the wall with a muffled _WHICK_. It left a small dent before sliding across the floor and eventually slowing to a stop.

As Tron watched this piece of metal put itself to use, his tail twitched once or twice, then he finally raised his head up, his face suggesting that he had just had a brainstorm. Casting one more glance back at the gear, he slowly crawled down from the soda machine, then looked down the hallway before finally straightening himself up and breaking out into a toothy grin, one of terrific menace.

"Of course," he whispered to himself. "The only way to inflict death the modern way…is _ammunition_…"

***

The streets were dark, and the only source of light, now, were the headlights of a passing truck in the center of the road. It was a rather large, heavy shipment truck, and inside were two figures: a driver and a chosen assistant. Apparently the truck contained scream tanks, because both drivers were familiarized figures from the Monsters, Inc. factory. One of them was a tall, rather bulky monster with blue-green coloring, four eyes, and a mustache, and the other was none other than Needleman. The less familiar monster was the one at the wheel, while Needleman was staring out the window, looking rather nervous, as always.

For a while the only sound to be heard was the sound of the tires on the pavement, but after a while the driver finally spoke. "Yeah, it's a long drive to the minor buildings, isn't it? I'd have expected us to be there by now, what with the way I'm driving…"

"I hope you're not going over the speed limit," Needleman replied nervously, still gazing into the review mirror. "The last thing I want is for us to crash."

The driver laughed and reached one hand over to clap him rather hard on the back. "You worry too much. I may be out of the sober range, but I'm still a safe driver. Trust me, the chances of us crashing are really low."

"I don't think that it was wise to down that glass of whiskey before coming out here," Needleman objected, drawing his head back inside the truck. "It tends to make one go…out of mind for _quite_ a few moments…" He tapped his fingers together nervously. "And this street is _incredibly_ dark. What if you run into something?"

"There you go again with the crashing!" the driver sighed. "Listen, I can assure you that we won't crash. I'm a truck driver, remember? I know these roads like the back of my hands."

"Look, I agreed to come with you because it's my job to keep track of the scream canisters. I didn't get into this truck with a partially-drunk truck driver just to crash into a wall, or something similar."

"Will you _stop_ with the crashing?" the driver snapped at him, sounding peeved. "I _told _you, I'm an experienced truck driver. Your problem is that you worry too much. Trust me, you're in good hands. If we crash, I'll find a way to pay you back somehow. Don't worry about it, okay? Just don't worry about it."

"Well, yeah, but…" It was then that the weakly built monster saw a shadowy, dark figure dart out into the center of the road, directly in front of the truck's headlights. His eyes wide, he looked at the driver, who was making no effort to stop the truck whatsoever, then back at the figure before fearfully digging his fingers into the leather of his seat. "Oh geez, _stop the truck_!"

The driver still appeared to have a rather calm attire. "What did you say, now?"

"Brake it!" the monster exclaimed frantically, grabbing the driver by the shoulders. "You're going to hit something! Brake it now! BRAKE IT!"

"Why do you want me to—" the driver began, but it was then that he noticed the figure in the middle of the road. "Oh, dear God!" he exclaimed, before slamming one of his feet down on the brake pedal, nearly propelling the two forward. The headlights now illuminated the figure; it was pressed against the street, staring ahead at the truck like a frightened rabbit. Every bit of its body appeared to be frozen in place as the truck slowed itself, but the force applied to the brakes wasn't enough to halt it before it reached the figure's body. Then…

*_KA-THUMP KA-THUMP_*

The truck leapt slightly as it ran directly over the figure, front and back tires, before finally giving a low groaning noise and slowing to a stop entirely. The two monsters within the truck could only stare straight ahead for a few moments, shocked, then finally the truck driver turned to look at Needleman, who appeared to be in a higher state of shock than he currently was. His throat dry, he licked his lips for a few moments, then finally said, sounding rather hoarse, "We—we'd best go check on it. See if…if it's still alive."

"Yeah…" Needleman still seemed at the brink of having a stroke. "Let's go do…that…"

The truck driver nodded, then slowly leaned over and opened his car door, slowly stepping out. Needleman paused a few moments before doing the same, then the two walked up next to each other and, staring out at the darkened street, slowly began to descend down one side of the truck. It wasn't until they reached the front tires, however, that Needleman finally noticed that something was wrong with the scene.

At first he didn't believe it, but after a while he saw that it was true: instead of the tires remaining the way that they had been before, one side was entirely flattened, almost in a perfect imprint. Drawing himself back up, he looked over at the back tires—which were harder to see, being farther into the darkness—but indeed saw that they had been crushed at one side as well. His eyes widening, he quickly ran up to the truck driver and tapped him on the shoulder.

The truck driver jumped slightly, then quickly turned around to face Needleman. "What? What's going on?"

Needleman swallowed, then pointed toward the flattened tires. "Whatever we ran over back there…it wasn't…it wasn't…it was inhumane, I swear it was…" The truck driver seemed rather confused at where he was going with this conversation. "J-just look at the tires, okay?"

The truck driver stared at him a few seconds more, then leaned to the side, staring past Needleman and at the crushed tires. His eyes grew wide as he spotted the imprint, and he began stammering. "N-n-no…th-that can't be…that's imposs—that's impossib—"

"I d-don't even think we ran over a r-real m-monster," Needleman said, still sounding highly nervous. He chewed on a claw. "Do y-you want to see if the thing's still there, or should I do it?"

"No, I'll do it," the truck driver sighed, his nervousness fading slightly. "It's my truck, and I'm responsible for whatever damage comes upon it. I need to find out what I ran over in order to report a believable story for the insurance…"

"A believable story?" Needleman repeated, looking at him oddly.

"Hey, do you know what insurance for trucks is like these days?" The driver shook his head and shrugged. "Murder. They probably won't believe me if I said that I ran over something that looked like a citizen and ended up crushing the tires." He looked in the direction of the dim road. "By the looks of the back tires, I'd say that the thing we ran over is still over near the upper part of the street. I'm going to go investigate."

"Should I go with you?"

"No. You stay here and watch for any signs of motion, while I go check on what we ran over. I don't need a second hand, by the looks of things I'd say that the thing is probably stone cold dead by now." He turned and began walking toward the end of the truck. "As I said before, you wait here. I'm going to the upper road."

Needleman responded with a rather uneasy nod, then stood near the truck doors while the driver slowly walked down the side of the truck, toward the upper part of the street. He continued to move in a sluggish gait, and thus did not fade from view into the darkness until about five minutes later. However, he was not fazed by the darkness of the road and continued to walk down the street, glancing around him every now and then for any signs of suspicion. If they had indeed run over another monster and the police agency found out…

He shook his head and continued walking, until he found the spot where they had supposedly run over the creature in the road. He looked around him, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not see a thing—whether it was from the darkness or just from general absence, he could not tell. Scratching his head, he looked around him some more…then he heard a rather low thumping sound from off to his right.

Being that he was facing the left side of the road at the time, he knew that it was _not_ in the direction of the truck. Shuddering with nervousness, he slowly turned his head toward the direction of the noise…just in time to see a flash of red before something heavy, quick, and apparently large slammed into him, knocking him off of his feet and sprawling him out on the ground, lying on his side.

Appalled by this, he opened his mouth to scream, but before he could do so a pitch-black reptilian hand clamped itself directly over his mouth, silencing him. The driver's eyes widened, and he looked up at the figure that had obviously attacked him…in time to see a shadowed image of what appeared to be Randall Boggs. He knew Randall quite well; he was known among the factory workers for being second-best Scarer. But what was Randall doing out here in the middle of the night on a deserted street…?

He didn't have time to think it through; all he knew was that he needed to get away, and he needed to do it quickly; the creature seemed to have a hungry gaze in its glowing red eyes. In a panic, he clawed frantically at the ground, hoping to get away to the point where he could get to his feet and run, but the creature allowed him to do no such thing. It continued to hold him down, like a cat does to a mouse, running a forked tongue over its teeth before opening its mouth—the driver could see the glint of its teeth in the glow that its eyes gave off—and he tried to scream once again, but to no such avail. In a flash the creature had brought its head down again, sinking its teeth deeply into the driver's exposed side. The driver gasped, then gave out a few choked breaths as the creature unhitched its teeth from the flesh, then slowly drew its head back up again as blood flowed from the wound.

The driver was in incredible pain, but he could do little or nothing about it. He could only helplessly watch as the creature raised its massive jaws directly over his head, then slowly opened its mouth, exposing those incisors…those horrible incisors…and the blackness finally washed in upon him as the teeth made their mark.

Needleman, meanwhile, knew little to nothing about what had become of the driver, and was still standing nervously beside the truck, shivering slightly and looking out at the darkened road before him. He continued to wait for the driver to come back up the road and inform him of what they had run over, but ten minutes passed to no avail. The slightly weak monster was growing impatient, and was wondering if the driver had indeed found out but had left him there with the truck as his idea of a practical joke. He had been partially out of mind, after all…

"Alright," he finally called out into the blackness, "that's enough! You can come back here, now, because you aren't fooling anyone." He couldn't help but sound slightly uneasy as he said these words. "Come on, we haven't got all night! We need to get these over to the minor factory building as soon as possible!"

Silence.

"Hey! I mean it! Do you hear me back there?"

Silence.

Needleman was now on the brink of nervousness. "Hey…I really do mean it. Just come back here and let's get this done, okay? I won't make any more comments about your driving…"

The silence continued. Needleman, finally realizing that in order to get the truck driver to come to his senses and return to their intended job, he swallowed hard, then, still shaking slightly, began to make his way down the side of the truck, toward the area in which the driver had walked off in. He was still quaking in fear when he came to the end of the truck and reached the upper road. He had expected to see the driver standing there, next to a motionless object…

But he received no such thing; in fact, what he saw was much worse. For upon adjusting to the blackness, the first thing he saw was the driver, lying motionless in a pool of black-ish colored blood, along with another figure ripping at his corpse, shredding it and swallowing a few things every now and then. Needleman clapped his hands to his mouth, his eyes huge, then slowly began to back away.

_Oh, dear God_, he thought to himself as he watched this horrific scene. _Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh dear sweet God…_

Before he could get to the safety of the truck, however, the creature looked up and spotted him. Its glimmering eyes burned directly into his, and he stammered a bit before freezing entirely in place, poised to run but at the same time unable to do so. It was a living nightmare. He wanted more than anything to make a break for it, but at the same time he was weighted…held down…and even worse, this creature had spotted him and was probably making intentions on how to kill him next.

He couldn't let that happen. The creature had now drawn all of its attention to him and was now slinking toward him, pressed low to the ground, its eyes never leaving his. Needleman stared at it in sheer horror for a while, then finally, unable to stand in place any longer, turned and bolted. The creature was familiar with this action, however, and merely waited until he was gone before pursuing him.

Needleman sensed his attacker and tried to pick up the pace, but he could not match the speed of the creature behind him. He knew that it was gaining on him by the inch, and he needed to do something about it…anything. As he ran along the street, he was just about to run behind a nearby street sign when he saw an alley off to his right.

Normally he had a great fear of dark alleys, but this time it seemed to be his best friend. Without hesitation, he made a sharp right and ran into the alley, diving headfirst into a nearby dumpster just as the creature rounded the corner and stopped in the entrance, its legs spread out and its position suggesting that it was ready to attack. However, when it didn't see its prey in the alley, it became highly confused. Tasting the air with its forked tongue, it narrowed its eyes, then uttered a low growl and slowly began to descend into the darkness of the alley.

Needleman was more frightened than curious, but nonetheless he had to see what the creature was up to. Taking care not to make any noise (which is rather hard considering the fact that you're surrounded by trash), he slowly raised his head over the top of the dumpster and watched the creature as it stalked around the alley, growling every now and then and looking around with an air of great suspicion. Its tail twitched every now and then, and its breathing was harsh—even though he was yards away Needleman could hear it. Noticing that the creature was heading in his direction, he quickly lowered himself back into the dumpster and brought both hands to his head, pleading to himself the same words over and over: _Please don't find me please don't find me please don't find me please don't find me…_

After a few tense moments the creature's head finally loomed over the edge of the dumpster. Needleman froze in place as the creature turned its head to both sides, then tasted the air yet again before uttering a low growl and, surprisingly, drawing away from the dumpster. Needleman continued to remain in place, however, until the sounds of the creature died away entirely, and the silence resumed.

Breathing hard and quaking with fear, the monster slowly raised his upper body up from the dumpster and looked out at the alley, into the street. The creature was gone. The driver was gone. The streets were now entirely deserted except for the occasional gust of wind blowing up from the alleyway…


	5. Chapter Five

****

THE ANNIHILATION

By Grand High Idol

Author's Note: Ack! I can't believe I kept you guys waiting all that time! I've kinda been busy with my other stories as of late…anyway, here it is. (I'd also like to take this time to thank all of my kind reviewers. You make everything worthwhile. ^^)

****

CHAPTER V

The dawn of the next morning brought Mike and Sullivan to the table, a cup of coffee for each of them beside their places and a Sunday newspaper on the table. Mike chewed on a piece of slightly burnt toast, looking out the window at the streets below him, while Sullivan took a sip of coffee before looking at Mike himself. The conversation of last night had still kept itself with him for the remainder of his dreams, and, as promised, he decided to start the conversation of what had happened yesterday once more. Casually picking up the paper from its place on the table, he cleared his throat to get his partner's attention.

Mike stopped chewing his toast and looked at Sullivan. "Yeah? What is it?"

"I thought you wanted to talk to me about what happened yesterday," Sullivan replied. "You know, about what happened with Randall and the locker room. What exactly was this entire thing about, can I now ask?"

Mike sighed, then played around with his fingers before finally continuing, "Well, you see, the thing about that was…you remember me saying last night that Randall couldn't possibly be in two places at once, right?"

Sullivan nodded promptly before taking another sip of coffee. "Right."

"Well, how _could_ he?" Mike asked him. "How _could_ he be in two places at once? I mean, when I came in I recall him walking out, plain as day…he even insulted me before leaving, as he always did. I did hear him muttering something to himself before I walked in, though…I don't know what it was about, but I somehow have this strange suspicion that he was talking about the meaning of the look-alike in the toilet…you don't think it was his doing, do you?"

"Nah," Sullivan replied. "It's true that Randall would do anything to beat me at the Top Scare Record, and I know that he likes to pick on you for fun at times, but I don't think that he would stoop as low as to waiting for you in the toilet, of all places. As I said before, if anyone found out about that—especially you—he would lose every bit of dignity he has."

"But then what—" Mike began, but he was immediately distracted the moment that Sullivan decided upon opening up the Sunday newspaper. Neither monster had been actually paying attention to the headline on the front page, but now that Sullivan had taken interest in the inner articles, the front-page article caught Mike's attention at once. His mouth dropping open slightly, he nearly dropped the chewed piece of toast that he still held in his hand, then abruptly reached across the table and snatched the paper out of his best friend's hands.

"Hey!" Sullivan remarked, as Mike quickly folded the paper to the front page. "Mike, I was reading that!"

"I know, I know," Mike replied quickly, "but I think that you should see this first. I think it's rather urgent in my terms."

"Maybe in your terms, but what about—" Sullivan tried to object, but he was cut short at his first glimpse of the front page, which Mike had nearly thrust into his face. The blue monster was taken aback for a few moments, but after a while slowly took the paper from Mike and read the headline, which stated, in large, bold letters, right below the logo that read "Monstropolis Morning Post":

****

KILLER IN OUR MIDST!

Murderous Lizard Monster Slaughters Truck Driver

"Oh…dear God…" Sullivan remarked, unable to tear his gaze away from the headline.

"Wait," Mike said, holding up his hand. "There was more to the article than just the headline. I feel the need that we should read it before making any more sudden judgements."

"Right," Sullivan said, still sounding rather taken aback. There was a pause before either of them spoke. "So, should you read the print, or should I do it myself?"

"Uh…" It was Mike's turn to be at a loss of words, now. "How about we just read it at the same time, to ourselves, okay? That way we can go at our own pace, and we won't miss any important details."

"Right," Sullivan repeated; he then shifted the paper to the point where both he and Mike could see it, and the two began quickly skimming through the article itself, which read the following:

_Last night, at approximately 1:32 a.m., a truck driver was slaughtered brutally by an ebony lizard monster during the usual shipment of Scream Canisters to the minor buildings of the famous Monsters, Inc. scare processing factory. After reports from the assistant handler (a Mr. Terrance Needleman) of the recent killing, the CDA was immediately called to attention. However, upon all further inspection of the area, they have not found any evidence of the cadaver nor the creature that had slaughtered the driver himself. But, during their inspections of the street they had found a strange pool of blood lying in the center of the road, along with an eerie set of three-toed, clawed footprints leading over to the alleyway._

Mr. Needleman has informed us that after killing the truck driver, the monster had taken notice of him and had come after him as well. He escaped only by diving into a nearby dumpster, to the point in which the monster could not see nor smell him. This proves questionable by the rules of science, seeing that most reptilian creatures have an acute sense of smell. "It just looked over the dumpster, turned its head, then…it left," Mr. Needleman claims. "When I got out, both of them were gone."

Needleman also has claimed that they had stumbled upon the creature by at first running it over; the driver was claimed to be partially drunk and thus could not brake the vehicle to the point where all damage may have been avoided. The creature, when compared to the proven evidence, had not been harmed in any way, which is an incredible feat in monsters considering that two sets of undoubtedly heavy tires had run over it. The tires, Terrance reports, had been crushed almost entirely flat on one side, while the creature went unharmed.

Mr. Needleman has described the creature as a "deep black color, with piercing red eyes and an incredibly threatening attire". He had also stated that upon first glimpse it had looked almost exactly like Randall Boggs, a fellow employee at the Monsters, Inc. factory. Further questioning will be run on this Mr. Boggs to see if he indeed was the killer of the driver. "This is serious," a fellow CDA agent had commented on the scene of the crime. "If there is indeed a slaughter in our midst, we won't stop until we've caught him. And if the murderer is indeed this Mr. Boggs, then we won't stop until we've gotten something out of him."

Further connections have also been followed to the "Harlin Gun Storage", where some 14 .44 revolvers had been stolen not too long after the murder had taken place. All further information is classified as of late.

"Whoa…" Mike finally sighed after reading through the article.

"I don't believe that," Sullivan said in awe, shaking his head as he set the newspaper down. "That description of the creature paid exact homage to the Randall look-alike you saw in the bathroom yesterday. And now it's slaughtered someone…it's actually slaughtered someone."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Mike replied. "But what I still don't get is that it wasn't even able to smell Needleman, and he wasn't even behind a door or anything. It couldn't smell me very well, either, not even when I was about a foot away from it." He slumped back down on his seat and shook his head in disbelief. "Why can't it smell a monster, yet able to brutally slaughter it at the same time?"

"You know, something just occurred to me," Sullivan said, propping his elbows up on the table and looking at Mike. "Whatever that _thing_ was…I don't think it was the real Randall."

Mike looked at his friend in confusion. "What do you mean by that? Of course it was Randall; who else could it have been? Who else would enjoy frightening me to death like that? Who else is cold enough to actually _slaughter_ an innocent truck driver in the blink of an—"

Sullivan firmly shook his head. "It wasn't Randall, Mike."

"Okay, now everything's going wrong, here," Mike replied. "You're actually taking Randall's side? And all this time I thought that you were always one to support your friends and not your foes. What's going on, buddy?"

"Mike, I'm not taking anyone's side," Sullivan retorted. "It wasn't Randall. And if you want to know why…" He reached toward his cup of coffee, which was still set on the table. "It's because I noticed that the article said that they found _clawed_ footprints. Randall doesn't have clawed toes, Mike." He took another sip of coffee before continuing. "And besides, do you actually think that Randall could _survive_ being run over by a six-ton truck and still go completely unharmed?"

Mike paused to think this over. "Well, no, but…"

"Whatever frightened you and killed that driver wasn't Randall, Mike," Sullivan told him, before reaching over for his own plate of toast. "It was something else. Something invincible enough to withstand what had happened last night. Something brutal enough to slaughter without first thoughts. Something that isn't one of us…" Sullivan paused. "Something from…the other side of the door…"

***

Tron, meanwhile, had picked a copy of the paper out of one of the racks near the factory's lounge and was now sprawled out on his frontside, his tail twitching like a cat's and his face set in a rather eerie grin as he eyed the print on the front page. Being a creature of pride, he rather enjoyed the fact that his little slaughter had provoked some type of fear wave in the city itself.

He paused in gloating to himself and looked over to his left, at the pile of varied bones that he'd collected. Knowing that he'd probably set off some more suspicion if he left the remains of his dinner lying there, after he had left the alleyway he went back to the corpse and dragged it back over to the factory. After picking the bones clean, he had simply thrown them into the pile along with the bones of the janitor—whom no one seemed to care about. Either that, or no one knew that he was dead yet…pretty ignorant of them, he thought to himself.

His gaze then shifted over to what lay beside the bones, and he broke out into yet another eerie grin at the sight of that, as well. He knew the cause of the ammunition theft; that was what he had gone out for in the first place. Now, a pile of .44 revolvers lay in the spot he had set his eye on, and he was planning to use them tonight, and use them well. Randall would be the first to go, he had decided, followed by that annoying little green monster he had seen in the facilities. The others would follow shortly after, one by one, until he was satisfied with his doing and finally finished the job by killing off the CEO.

This plan played itself over and over in his head as he looked back down at the black and white print of the paper, then his tail twitched once more before he finally hoisted himself onto all eights and began to pad off toward the back of the storage room. It would all end…tonight.

***

"What the heck are you _talking_ about?"

"Don't get sassy with us, Boggs," the head of the Monstropolis CDA snapped, pointing a gloved finger directly in the lizard monster's face. "You know darn well what you did last night, and if you don't wise up you'll have a lot more coming than what we're going to give to you if you don't."

"I'm flattered," Randall replied rather blandly, before continuing, "But seriously, I don't know what in the name of Monstropolis you're talking about, and I mean that. I was at my apartment at one a.m. Fungus talked me into playing checkers for _three hours straight_…" He looked over to the side, a rather annoyed gaze on his face, before looking back at the CDA officer and continuing. "So, honestly, I have nothing to do with this murder case. I'm sorry."

"You'll be even sorrier if you don't tell us what you really did!" the CDA officer barked in response. "There's no use trying to provide backup, Boggs. That creature looked _just like_ you, as offered by Needleman's description of it—"

"Are you going to believe _everything_ Needleman tells you?" Randall replied coolly, crossing his first pair of arms over his chest and looking casually at the CDA officer. "Unless you've got some photographic proof that the creature was, indeed, me, I don't think that I'll be able to confess anytime soon."

If the CDA officer had actually had a visible face, it would've probably been bright red with frustration at that moment. Furiously slamming his palms down on the desk, he replied, rather fiercely, "You cannot prove _everything_ in the whole freakin' world with photographs!"

Randall jumped slightly at the impact that his hands made, but, knowing that he had to remain cool under pressure, quickly shook it off and replied, "It would probably help you a lot in this case. Because I don't know what this thing is that you're talking about, and—"

He stopped mid-sentence, finally bringing the thought of his horrible experience in the lab to mind. Shuddering at the mere thought of what they had done in there, his mind settled on the image of Tron. Tron…the last time he had seen that monster (not referring to his species, of course) he had been shackled to the support beams in the back of the storage room. It was made clear in that incident that Tron wanted to kill him, so it wouldn't be impossible for Tron to try and frame him as well. But had that been his true intention…?

He thought for a few more moments before finally looking back up at the CDA officer. If anything was to happen here, it needed to happen quick before measures became drastic. Deciding to wrap up this conversation quickly in the only way he knew how, he finally sighed dramatically, then replied, trying his best to sound guilty, "I…did do it, officer. I can now see that there's no use trying to hide it from you any longer."

The CDA officer's anger seemed to fade at this remark. "Well, I'm glad that you've finally admitted it," he replied, as Randall secretly grinned to himself. "We figured that it was you the moment that we got that description out of Mr. Needleman. Now, then—" He went behind Randall's chair and forced him up from his place at the table, then forced his first and second pair of arms behind his back and cuffed him—"You do know that manslaughter is a serious crime. You're going to get a dreadful sentence for this in court…but I'm glad that you've wised up, as stated before." He gave the lizard monster a rather harassing push. "Now, move it; we're locking you up until we can file a case."

_Like heck you are_, Randall thought as he readily obeyed, even though he wanted more than anything to snap at the officer for being so rough with him physically. He prevented himself from doing this, however, knowing that if his escape plan was to work he needed them out of his way until at least nightfall. Taking this to mind, he clenched his jaw and continued to look straight ahead as they led him to his cell.

***

Later that night Sullivan received a message on his answering machine.

Curious as to knowing who would send him a message besides Mike (which he usually only got when Mike got into serious trouble with Roz) or Celia, he took his seat next to it and pressed the button, a look of curiosity about his face. He then crossed his legs over one another and stared at it as the following message played itself through the speaker:

"Sullivan, it's Randall…I know now that you were supposedly ignorant enough not to _pick up the phone_ when I called you, but nonetheless…listen, I need you to do something for me. I'm currently in jail for murder, but it wasn't me…" There was a pause right then. "Anyway, I need you to inform Wazowski and have him call Fungus. Tell him it's important and that he should have Fungus call me back. Trust me on this one, for once…even though I dislike you much, I don't think Waternoose would be pleased if he found out that there was another—"

It was then that the line went dead, much to Sullivan's confusion. Finally deciding that this particular jail only allowed limited phone calls, he sighed, switched off the answering machine, then propped his elbow against the table and stared up at the ceiling, deep in thought. He knew very well that this was to happen, and he also knew from that morning that it indeed wasn't Randall that had done it. Much as he hated Randall's attitude, he decided that no one, not even him, should be held for something that they had no part in. But how would Mike react to this when he told him…?

Ironically enough, Mike came into the room at that very moment, the newspaper in one hand, ready to head over to one of the chairs and begin his evening reading session. As the green monster took his seat, Sullivan looked over at him, then sighed, looked up toward the ceiling again, then finally addressed Mike, deciding that it was all or nothing in this case. He secretly hoped it was the former that was to be considered.

"Mike?" he called to his friend.

The green monster looked up from the paper, his single eyebrow raised. "Yeah? What is it, buddy?"

Sullivan exhaled through his teeth, then finally replied, "Mike…you're probably not going to like this very much, but I think that it's important. Remember this morning when I told you about how it wasn't Randall who murdered that truck driver the night before?"

Mike nodded. "Yeah."

"Well…I think we have a little bit of a problem concerning that," the blue monster replied. "Uh…you see, I got a message on the answering machine from—"

"Was it from Celia?" Mike asked eagerly, folding the paper in half lengthwise and beginning to arise from his chair. "I told her to call me yesterday…with all this fuss over that murder thing I guess it kind of slipped my mind. Glad you reminded me, pal…"

"Uh…no, it wasn't Celia, Mike," Sullivan replied. Mike's eager grin faded, and he crossed his arms, his expression now one of confusion.

"Well, then, if it wasn't her—and I know that it wasn't me—who called you?"

"It was Randall, Mike."

Mike's expression became one of both shock and disgust. "What! What would lizard boy be doing calling _us_? I thought he was already rubbing it in enough at work as is…man, one day when I let you get your paws on him—"

"Calm down and listen!" Sullivan demanded, grabbing his friend by the shoulders. Mike stopped talking and looked up at the larger monster, still looking slightly confused. "Okay, okay, now let me explain. Why Randall called…it was something about that murder case. I told you that it wasn't Randall, right?"

"Right." Mike nodded again.

"Well, he's in jail for it anyway, and he told me to have you call Fungus about something and tell him that it was important. I have no idea what this is about, but right before the connection was switched off I heard him say something about 'that there was another'…"

"That there was another what?"

"I didn't catch the rest. The connection was cut right before he was about to say it…"

"Well, that doesn't help much, does it?"

"Yeah, but I think I'm onto something," Sullivan replied, removing his massive hands from the green monster's shoulders. "Do you remember what I told you earlier about the footprints?" Mike once again nodded in response. "And you said that you saw a black version of Randall jump out of the toilet and try to kill you, right?" Mike nodded yet again. "Well, I think that that black Randall ties in with all of this. I actually think that it was _that _one who murdered the truck driver, not Randall himself."

"Eh?" Mike cocked his head to one side, and placed his hands on his hips. "What do you mean by 'that one'?"

"I mean that that thing is probably a Randall copy or look-alike…one with a more aggressive mind," Sullivan replied, rather excitedly. "And if it's indeed as murderous as you say it is, I think that it was the thing that killed the driver, not Randall…okay, okay, do you know what I'm getting at now?"

"Yeah…" Mike finally replied, sounding rather far off.

"So, if that's the case, I think that you should call Fungus," Sullivan replied, gesturing toward the phone. "Just tell him what I think happened, and what Randall said, and he'll be right over. You know how he is…always ready to follow through with something…"

"Heh, yeah," Mike replied, grinning as he picked up the receiver. "Kind of a wimp, huh?" He dialed the number of Randall's apartment, then leaned one hand casually against the table and drummed his clawed fingers on it, waiting for an answer.

Fungus picked up on the second ring. "Yeah?" he replied in his slightly nerdy voice.

Mike sniggered, although he knew that this was a serious case for both Sullivan and himself. "Yeah, hey, Oz. It's Mike. Mike Wazowski. You know, the guy that Randall picks on in the locker rooms almost _every single day_." He glowered at this remark, but his expression quickly changed. "Anyway, just wanna tell you that your partner's in jail at the moment—"

"What?" Fungus interrupted, his voice slightly faltered. "Why?"

"Murder," Mike replied casually. "You read this morning's paper, right?"

"I couldn't manage to get a copy…those other Assistants in the lounge are pretty tough."

_What a wimp_, Mike thought to himself, then sighed and said, "Well, it said that one of the factory's truck drivers was brutally murdered last night at one in the morning, and they think that Randall's the prime suspect. Apparently he couldn't put up a good enough defense, so they jailed him. My partner and I got a message from him that said to call you."

"But we were playing checkers last night…I remember winning about nine of the twenty games that we played. And why didn't he just call me instead of telling you to call me instead?"

Mike stopped at this response, then looked over with puzzled attire at Sullivan, who shrugged. He then concentrated back on the phone. "Uh…I don't know, but that's not important right now. All I know is that it's important, and…oh yeah, Sully has a theory on why this might be happening."

"Would you mind explaining it?"

Mike stopped again, then thought for a few moments before finally replying, trying to sound as natural as possible, "Okay, listen. I think that lizard b—I mean, Randall wants us to do something or another, maybe that's why he called us first. Why don't you come over, and we'll try to figure this out before we do anything crazy, okay?" _Man, I cannot believe I just agreed to that_…he said at the same time, mentally.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line, then Fungus finally replied, in the simplest way Mike had ever heard, "Okay. I'll be right over."

He then hung up, and for a few moments all Mike heard was the dial tone. He sighed again, then hung up the receiver and looked over at Sullivan. "Well, I suppose that this is the beginning of something I'm really going to regret," he declared.

***

Shortly after Fungus had hung up the phone, he had quickly left for Sullivan and Mike's apartment suite, at the same time wondering what all of this was about. As he stepped out into the city streets, completely empty except for an occasional car passing by every now and then, he looked around nervously, then began to slowly descend down the street, keeping close to the road; it was lighter there than near the buildings. He'd never really liked alleys much anyway, truth to be told…

He stopped dead after a few paces when he heard the sound of something clattering along the ground, and he quickly whipped around to face it. Sighing in relief, noticing that it was nothing but an empty soup can someone had purposely thrown onto the ground, he turned back around and began to walk again, this time walking along the curb, directly in the light of the city's streetlamps.

Adjusting his glasses, he continued to walk along the path, keeping in tone with the light patterns, and was about halfway to reaching the apartment itself when he heard a scuffling sound coming from a nearby alleyway. Freezing in place, his eyes darted over toward the origination of the noise, but no matter how hard he looked, he saw nothing there.

Shaking his head, thinking that this entire thing was getting the better of him, he continued walking, but quickened up his pace as well. Much to his surprise, the scuffling sound came again, only this time it sounded much closer. He heard a low hiss shortly afterward. Freezing once again for a moment, he tried to calm himself to the point where he could take another step forward…

Then the hiss came again…and this time it sounded as if it were directly behind him.

This time he could not move; could not even calm himself into moving. Every muscle in his body seemed to have frozen in place, and he stood like a bronze statue as an ugly looking shadow loomed over him; he opened his mouth to scream in terror but an ebony clawed hand quickly slipped in front of his face and sealed it off with its palm.

Panicked, he made several unintelligible noises from behind the hand's shield, but it was in vain; he knew that there was no one on the street that could hear him or see him, for that matter. The force of the creature's paw drew him backward, almost knocking him over, to the point where he was pressed up against something…something cold and supposedly rough. His eyes widened dangerously as another hand clamped itself around his throat and lifted him up, suspending him about four inches off the ground.

_What's going on_? His mind demanded to know, but he could not surface an answer; the creature that was binding him could not be seen. Perspiration was beginning to drip down one side of his head as he waited…waited…the creature was silent, dead silent, until finally its grip tightened on him, the claws embedded into the tips of its fingers threatening to dig into his skin. It then said the following, its voice sounding dead and incredibly scratchy, like an old tape recording:

"_You try it, and I kill you_."

Fungus's eyes widened more, and he made another unintelligible whimpering noise, but he resisted the urge to struggle; the last thing he wanted was a scar across his mouth and throat.

"_You go near the factory, and I kill you_."

The red-orange monster struggled again, and this time the creature's claws sank into him, piercing his skin. Fungus would've screamed, if it hadn't been for the creature's hand…but that didn't matter right now. Slowly, steadily, the creature's claws released themselves, allowing him to drop to the ground, landing rather hard on the pavement.

"_Now run for it_." This time the voice was simply an eerie hiss.

Fungus remained frozen, unable to believe that what he had just witnessed was real.

"_RUN FOR IT_!" Were the final words that the voice bellowed, sounding too demonic for words to even express here.

Fungus, now obeying the voice without hesitation, picked himself up and ran as fast as possible, screaming, refusing to look back at his attacker, all the way to the dimly lit front door of Sullivan and Mike's apartment.


	6. Chapter Six

****

THE ANNIHILATION

By Grand High Idol

CHAPTER VI

"You're actually serious that something attacked you?" Mike asked, unable to believe it. Of course, then again perhaps he was just being his usual self…rather panicky…

"Yeah." Fungus rubbed at his throat, which had been applied with a generous amount of antibiotics shortly after he had arrived and had been carefully bandaged over…with, needless to say, with Fungus being what he was, almost an entire box of bandages, which Sullivan hadn't been very amused with, as Mike…but that didn't matter right now. The group of three was now sitting in the living room, on a set of chairs; Sullivan and Mike next to each other, and Fungus on the footrest in front of the television. "I was walking, and it…just suddenly came out of nowhere and grabbed me…and its voice, ho boy, _that_ was something I'd rather not hear again."

"Were you able to catch an intelligible phrase?" Sullivan asked.

"Um…well, despite the way it acted, it spoke very well," Fungus commented. "It said something about going near the factory…he said that if we tried 'it', it'd kill us. But what exactly is 'it'? Hmm?" He held out his hands in bewilderment.

Sullivan and Mike exchanged glances, then finally looked back at the three-eyed monster. After a short moment of silence, Sullivan finally replied, "Well…uh, I think that it could be a clue of as to what exactly Randall wants us to do…"

"As in how?" Mike asked, folding his arms.

"Well, think about it," Sullivan suggested. He scratched the side of his head. "Or 'it', however you want to say it. Anyway, Randall said that he was calling from prison, and he also said that he was jailed for murder…but it wasn't him. I did some thinking, and I finally came to the conclusion that it was indeed _not_ Randall who had committed the crime. Thus, there was only one other possible explanation. It had to be that ebony Randall that Mike saw in the facilities, and, I'm quite sure that the same creature threatened you on the way to the alley…Fungus." He finally took some time to take a breather.

"So…what are you getting at?" Mike asked, shrugging. "If Randall's innocent—"

"Then he shouldn't be in jail," Sullivan interrupted, firmly. "Which probably means that he wants us to prove him innocent, and then go near the factory or something…either that or bust him out, one of the two."

"Knowing Randall, I'd say the latter," Fungus stated. He scratched at one of the bandages on his throat. "But the night-watch over at the prison is horrendous, not to mention that they have security cameras all over the place. How are we going to get in there?"

"Oh, we'll think of something," Mike said slyly, rubbing his hands together. "Now let's stop talking and get in on the action. We should head over there before we waste any more time."

"Right," Sullivan agreed, heading for the door. "Let's roll."

***

As the trio left the apartment and began to head down the street, a shadowy figure—the exact same one, in fact, that had threatened Fungus earlier—slowly appeared from the top of a TV antenna stationed on an adjacent building. Its glowing eyes narrowed, its tail twitching, it stared down, in an emotionless stance, as, six stories below its position, the three monsters continued to walk down the street, trying to act "casual" in hopes that no one would suspect what they were about to do.

The civilians that even bothered to come out at night would probably buy it, but the shadow didn't. As Fungus had run, screaming, it had used the naturally-adhesive pads on its toes to dart up one side of a building, then nimbly leap over them, able to keep a clear view of what was going on below it and at the same time remain unseen for the most part. When it recognized Mike from what it had seen in its earlier moments, it had thus found a position on a nearby TV antenna, of course—that was the best spot in this case—and had overheard their entire conversation from near the window.

Of course, that meant two things: it knew exactly what they were going to do, and it also knew that this was exactly what it had intended. Suspecting that they had it figured out, the creature had thus exposed itself to Fungus and had, as planned, freaked him out quite a bit. The blue monster was only a lure for the green monster, which, of course, it wanted to kill second to its counterpart…Randall.

It smiled eerily as it descended from the antenna and hopped onto the roof of the next building. This was going to be sweet.

***

"Alright, lights out, ya criminal freaks!" the head Monstropolis police officer, a sapphire-colored monster with tentacles and eyes that looked like they were made out of green glass, barked. As usual, he found it his duty to keep every criminal in the eastern part of the jail under complete and total control, thus "assigning" them to shut up and lay down at a certain point in time. Randall, who had been placed in a cell next to where the night-watch usually rested, rolled his eyes_. Lowlife_, he thought. _Just wait till I_—

His thoughts were interrupted by the officer slamming his club against the bars of his cell, provoking a deafening _CLANNNNG_ noise and causing the entire front of the cell to vibrate. Stunned, the lizard monster slowly backed up, then fell to the floor halfway across, unable to get his footing right at that moment.

"I saw that, Boggs," the officer scoffed, attaching the string of his club back onto the loop of his belt. "And I suggest that if you ever want to see the daylights again, you'll think twice before acting so smug. You know darn well what you did."

"Right," Randall muttered under his breath, looking off to the side. _Yeah, I know what I did. I did nothing. You hear me, you thick-headed law enforcement?_ Nothing_._

Randall's single-worded mutter seemed to satisfy the officer well enough; he smiled smugly at Randall, then began to walk down the hallway, whistling cheerfully to himself. The lizard monster smoothed his fronds back anxiously, then got back to his feet and looked off down the hall until the officer had vanished from sight.

Drawing back, he went over to his cot and fell backward onto it, staring up at the jail's window. He knew that Sullivan had figured out his message well enough, probably, and that he had already figured out a way to get him out before Tron turned Monsters, Inc. into a bloodbath. Then again, maybe he had already started, and perhaps that would classify them as being too late to do anything…

_But hopefully, he hasn't. It's me he wants—isn't it?_

He shuddered at the thought. Remembering himself chained to the support beams in the storage room, with Tron about to sink his claws into his chest—that image still made him wonder just what might have happened to him if the unknown individual hadn't of dropped that glass at the last second. Being that Tron was his clone, he obviously possessed every single trait that Randall bore—along with the traits of a few other animals, ones of which Randall didn't know of.

Shaking his head violently, he got up from the cot, then walked to one side of his cell, leaning against the concrete wall. He suddenly was in no mood for relaxation. He knew that, unless he got a lucky break, he was completely insecure from Tron. If that sick creature decided to come after him now—

_Get a hold of yourself, Randall_, Randall scolded himself, angry for allowing himself to get carried away like this again. He crossed his first set of arms tightly over his chest. _Tron isn't _that_ stupid. He's probably going to attack you when you least expect it—probably when you go over to the factory or something. But at least then you'll be ready for anything he might be able to throw at you—steel included_.

He shuddered again, then, unable to stand in that spot for much longer, decided to look out his cell window and check on how bad the night-watch was tonight. Slinking over to his cot, he leapt up onto it, then crawled up the wall toward the window—directly above the cot. It was barred, of course—nearly everything around here was—but at least he got a good view of what was outside. There wasn't much, for the most part, except a few dead leaves that the wind picked up blowing by every few seconds, along with a few thumping and clanking noises below. The lizard monster looked around some more and was just about to try and test the bars' strength when a large eye suddenly appeared in front of him from below.

"GAH!" he exclaimed, obviously surprised; he fell backward off the edge of the barred window and landed on his back on the cot. He heard a few scuffing noises from the window above him, then finally a loud "Shh!" sound.

"Can it, lizard boy. You wanna wake up everyone in the whole jail?"

The voice was Mike's, that was obvious. Randall sighed in frustration, but couldn't help but feel at least a little pleased—they appeared to have gotten his message after all. Regaining his will to stand, Randall climbed back up to the edge of the window and placed his first set of pads on it, securing him in place as so that he could continue to look out the window without straining or jumping.

Sure enough, Mike's face was to be seen outside the window, and it looked like someone or something was holding him up. Randall couldn't get up well enough to see what was below him—the window was too narrow to allow that—but he could tell that Sullivan was there as well. And someone else…he had a hunch that there was someone else accompanying them, too…

"Hey, Randall!"

Fungus appeared at the window, next, leaning in to the side and waving. Mike fiercely whispered something that the lizard monster found unintelligible and pushed the red-orange monster away from the window before looking back at Randall.

"Hey, lizard b—I mean, uh, Randall," Mike said, waving out of random thought. "Anyway, we got your message and we're here to bust you out."

"You think I didn't know that?" Randall whispered back fiercely. "That's the whole reason I called you in the first place! You honestly didn't think I could blow this joint by myself, did you?"

Mike pretended to ignore the frustration in Randall's tone and replied, "You know, you could've just told us accurately. It took forever to figure out what your message meant…"

"Yeah, well, you know what? I didn't have much of a choice," Randall hissed back. "The police were monitoring me every second I called you. If I mentioned that I was going to bust out of jail right in front of the officers, I'd make a complete and total fool of myself, now, wouldn't I?"

Mike shrugged, and a brief pause followed before he resumed the conversation. "Okay, okay, whatever. Now, anyway, we're here to get you out from the window, and it took us awhile to find your cell…that was a nuisance." Randall glared at him furiously. "But anyway," Mike continued, trying to lighten the subject, "We're going to start now…you think you can fit through the window if we cut away the bars?"

Randall looked down at himself, then back at the window, then finally nodded. "Yeah, I think so," he replied. "But just barely. You're going to need to cut the bars pretty far down if you expect me to get out without scraping myself."

"Don't worry," Mike replied, smirking. "We've got everything under control."

He then looked down below him and muttered something, then he was brought down from the window for a few moments. When he got back up, he was holding up a blowtorch with both hands, along with a flame-resistant mask. Randall raised an eyebrow, then slowly released his pads' grip and allowed himself to drop back onto the cot.

"Yeah, good idea," Mike called to him from below. "This could get a little messy, so just hang tight while we try to burn these away. Okay…ready…set…"

A blast of neon-blue flame then shot out from behind the window, and Randall slowly backed down from his cot, getting back down onto the floor as he watched Mike burn away the bars—it was a slow process, but, much to Randall's surprise, they were actually succeeding. Within five minutes, Mike had melted the edges of four of the steel bars, forming a supposed hole in the window with enough room for Randall to get through. However, he did not move the bars from their place.

"Okay," he said to Randall, lifting up the mask and taking care not to sound too loud, "I'm not wearing very good gloves, so I can't remove the bars. You're going to have to bust through them yourself. Think you can do that?"

"Don't sweat it," Randall replied confidently, backing up. He then bolted across the short space that his cell offered, took a flying leap toward the window…at first he thought that he was going to miss…but no! He smashed headlong through the weakened bars, causing them to fall out the window with him and land with incredibly loud impact on the ground below.

Randall landed next, although he lost his footing at the last second and fell, rolling across the ground, before slowing to a stop. Shaking himself to get the dust off, he stretched, then got to his feet and stared at his surroundings for awhile. Yes, this was good…they were nowhere near the back of the jail itself—in fact, he had come out right next to the flagpole overlooking the jail. Mike dropped the blowtorch carelessly, then leapt off of Sullivan's shoulders and ran over.

"Alright, it worked!" the green monster exclaimed triumphantly, thrusting one fist toward the stars. "And to believe that either of you doubted ol' Mikey for one second, heh, heh…"

"Okay, okay," Sullivan told them. "But we can't stay here for very long. Now that Randall's out, we should head over to the factory and try to find that ebony Randall…wherever that thing is…"

"His name's Tron, and believe me, he is _no_ amateur," Randall told them, surprised that he'd actually be using "no" and "amateur" right next to each other in a sentence. "I…um…_met up_ with him once, and I was this close to getting gored…" He held up his second set of arms about three inches from each other, then dropped them. "We're going to have to be careful, and I'm serious. Tron isn't something to be messed with."

"Where'd this—_Tron_—guy come from anyway?" Mike asked, his single eye set in a state of suspicious confusion. "I've never seen him around here in my life, and I've seen it all…well, most of it all…"

Randall sighed. "He's my clone," he replied solemnly. "That door, I—well, it wasn't an attack dog at all. It belonged to some weird kid, and he called his dad in…I tried to conceal myself, but he found me…we fought…I lost…and he used my blood—it was drawn!" he said in frustration, noticing the looks on Fungus and Mike's faces—"To make some kind of clone from me. He also added two other animals into my blood sample, depending from what I've seen, and I'm guessing that's what made Tron so hostile."

"Ooh…" Fungus said quietly.

"Why didn't you tell Waternoose about this?" Sullivan demanded. "We could've stopped it before it happened!"

"I didn't want him to suspect anything," Randall replied, this time sounding a tad ashamed, though he didn't try to show it. "But we can still stop it…that is, if we head over to the factory before he does anything drastic."

"What?" Mike asked, still confused.

Randall got down on all eights and began to dart down the streets. "He said that—he was going to—kill everyone—he said that they all—had to die—"

"Hey, hey, hey, you'd be a lot easier to understand if you'd run to the _side_ of the parked cars," Mike called after him, as the other three monsters ran down the street after the lizard monster. "What, now?"

Randall took a glance behind him, and, seeing that they were now a good distance from the jail, slowed to a stop and whipped around to face them, still on all eights, his first pair braced against the street. He then sighed angrily and repeated, "He said that he was eventually going to kill off everyone in the factory, one by one, and that we all had to die." He paused. "At least, that's what it seemed like to me…"

He then turned around and began to run again. "I don't care what we have to do, he _needs_ to die," he added firmly. "There can't be any other alternative. He's nearly invincible, and he's sure to break out of any binds we try to put him in." He leapt off the hood of another car and landed on the roof of a corner store before leaping back down near one of the trees. "Besides, he's apparently unstable. He's got a sick mind, Wazowski, a _sick_ mind."

"So do you," Mike muttered to himself, grinning at his joke, before focusing his gaze back on the road, as Randall continued to lead them up the sidewalk, toward the still open front doors of the Monsters, Inc. factory…

***

Sullivan cautiously pushed open the door of the factory and stepped inside to the dimly lit reception room, now nearly teeming with Monsters Inc. night shift employees. The four monsters looked around cautiously, trying to see if Tron was in with the other unsuspecting monsters, but when they found nothing, Randall turned his gaze toward the front desk. Celia was still sitting at the front desk, and was currently answering a call.

"Crackers," he muttered. "We can't get anything done with all these other employees in the way. I'm going to need to inform Waternoose of what exactly is going on here." He then looked over toward Sullivan. "Sullivan, you and Wazowski go to the front desk and tell the receptionist, in the mildest way possible, that there's a murderer among the crowd. Fungus, you go to the storage room and try to figure out what Tron's keeping back there."

"Randall…" Fungus moaned, apparently mortified at the fact that he'd have to go into the storage room—at night, at that—alone, to look for clues of a supposed murderer.

"Just do it!" Randall snapped back at him heatedly. "If anything worse persists, you know what to do."

Fungus was about to make a protest, but he knew that it was hopeless to try and reason with Randall at this time. Groaning, he nodded, then turned around and began to head over in the direction of the storage room. Randall drew in a hissing breath through his teeth, then bolted off toward the direction of the head office, weaving his way in-between the night-shift monsters, who seemed rather surprised to see him in here after-hours.

Mike and Sullivan waited until they both were out of sight, then Mike looked ahead at Celia. "Well…I suppose that we should do our job, then," he said, looking up in Sullivan's direction.

"Yeah," Sullivan replied, nodding; then the two ambled up to the front desk. Celia was finishing up a call, the phone on her shoulder; she then thanked the caller sweetly, hung up, and looked up in time to see Mike and Sullivan.

"Oh!" she remarked, apparently surprised, but it quickly passed. "Hello, Sweetums. I didn't expect you to be over here this late…did you come to visit me?" She smiled sweetly at Mike, who stared at her awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to say, before Sullivan nudged him in the side, snapping him out of his trance.

"We—I mean, uh, no, not exactly," Mike replied quickly. "Although I'd love to do that anytime," he quickly added. "Anyway, Schmoopsi-Poo—" Sullivan rolled his eyes—"We're here to tell you to clear out the factory. And I mean really soon. Really, _really_ soon."

"And why is that, Googley-bear?"

"Well…um, I know that you might freak out, but…I don't know how to say it any lighter. There's a murderer in the factory, Celia. And he wants to kill off everyone inside these walls. So, since I don't want anyone dead, especially you, I'm gonna have to ask you to usher everyone out as soon as you possibly can."

"A…murderer?"

Mike nodded. "We know him, too. His name's Tron and he's—uh, well, I have no idea how to put this, but he's related to Randall indistinctly. He came into the factory a little while after Randall finished that door test…he's got a really sick mind, Sweets. He's not going to listen to any retort placed upon it."

"He was the one who slaughtered that truck driver, too," Sullivan added. "Only he tried to make it look like Randall was the one, so he'd have him out of the way for the time being while he killed everyone off."

"But he wants Randall dead, too, more than anyone else," Mike finished. "So…please. Just try and get everyone out of the factory before Tron inflicts any further damage upon the factory employees. We really could do without another mindless slaughter, if you know what I'm getting at."

Celia was silent for a few moments; she looked off to one side and chewed her lower lip nervously, considering. Finally she looked back toward Mike and Sullivan helplessly and replied, "I can tell Waternoose about this, but I can't do anything unless the CEO approves of it."

"You don't need to worry about that," Sullivan replied, gently placing his hand on the desk. "Randall's already got that part covered."

***

Waternoose was just working on looking over his Scarer's files when Randall came bursting in through the door, looking clearly out of breath and even more wired than usual. As he thudded in front of the desk, the crab monster, momentarily startled, jumped slightly, causing a few of the papers to meet the air before slowly fluttering to the ground.

"My great stars, Randall!" he remarked. "I demand an explanation as to what that was about!"

Randall placed his first set of hands flat on the desk and said, pausing to smooth his fronds back into place as so to not look _too_ thrown out of shape: "Waternoose, I apologize for the part about your door, but I feel that this is much more important." He shook his head, trying to get the shakiness out of his voice, before clearing his throat and continuing, "Listen, Waternoose, about that door test I did a few days ago—"

"Yes, yes, that's already been covered," Waternoose replied calmly, folding his hands on his desk. "The door has been destroyed, and all records of it have been erased. You have no need to worry about going back in there any—"

"That's not the problem!" Randall snapped; he then once again cleared his tone into something calmer. He drew away from the desk, took a deep breath, then shut his eyes and shook his head. "Listen, Waternoose, about the door test…well, I kind of…lied about saying that there was an attack dog back there."

Waternoose pricked an eyebrow in suspicion. "Oh, yes?"

Randall nodded, then smoothed his fronds back nervously. "Uh…yes. You see, there wasn't an attack dog back there at all…that was just an excuse as to why I was gone so long. But this has really gotten out of hand, so I feel that you need to know the truth…" He sighed, then said, now making direct eye contact with the crab monster, "Waternoose, I think I know the reason as to why that other monster never came back through that door."

Waternoose looked back at him, almost darkly. "Is that so?" he said, his voice tone grave.

Randall sighed, then nodded again, hoping that Waternoose was willing to believe him still. "You see, when I went through there, I ended up in some little kid's room, and of course I made an attempt to scare him. It worked, but not for long…he brought his dad in there, and since I never handled a full-grown human before I had no idea as to what to do. He found me, we fought, he managed to put me out…then he locked me in a cage and eventually cloned me."

The crab monster now looked more surprised than disappointed. "He _what_?"

"It's true," Randall replied. "The clone came to life not much later than after I had left through the door. Somehow he managed to slip out into the monster world, and now he's causing all sorts of devastation. He's the one who killed that truck driver, not me, and now he's planning to kill off everyone in Monstropolis as well just to spite himself." He paused to allow all this to sink in, then he finally continued, "But listen, there's still a chance to stop all of this. The clone's name's Tron, and his goal is to kill off everyone in this factory first. Sullivan and Wazowski are willing to help me get rid of him, but we're going to need the factory empty in order to hunt him down safely. I urge you to evacuate every single employee in the building before anything worse persists."

Waternoose stared at him for a few more moments, then he lowered his head and slowly got up from his desk. "Randall, this is a major disappointment," he said gravely, walking toward him. "I thought that you'd be in your mind enough as so to actually speak the truth the first time around. We could've managed to hunt him down and put a stop to all this without taking any lives."

"That's what Sullivan said, too, but…" Randall chewed his lower lip, then said, taking a few steps toward the CEO, "Listen, it's already happened, and there's not much anyone can do to change it now. Thus, our only other option is to get rid of Tron before he does anything worse. Come on, Waternoose. You want to run the factory as well as your father did, don't you?"

Waternoose leered at him warningly, then turned toward the direction of the open doorway and just stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, thinking, for a few moments. Finally he turned back to Randall, his eyes looking quite sunken in the current lighting of the room.

"Very well," he replied. "I shall announce for every employee to evacuate the building until this _lusus naturae_ is destroyed. But if you _ever_ try anything like this _again_…"

"I apologize," Randall said; he even sounded like he meant it for a split second, which was rare for something in the lizard monster's case. "Now, come on, Waternoose, just _please_…"

"I will," Waternoose replied, his voice tone still solemn, beginning to head over to the intercom. "I will."

***

It took Fungus a long time to convince himself that the storage room was probably harmless anyway, and that Tron would probably be out somewhere else in the factory, before finally deciding to step into it. Being that the storage room currently wasn't in use for the factory as of right now, the entire area was pitch dark, save the stream of light that flowed in from the open doorways. Shaking nervously, the red-orange monster slowly took one step into the storage room, clasped his hand on one side of the doorway, looked around in every direction, then swallowed and took another step in.

"I really don't like this," he said to himself as he slowly began to walk toward the nearest set of packaging crates. "I really, _really_ don't like this." He whimpered slightly as he approached the first one. "Why does Randall _always_ have to make me do the worst jobs?"

He stopped at the first packaging crate, then looked around nervously before slowly stepping past it. "Please don't be here, please don't be here, please don't be here," he whispered to himself as he continued to maneuver through the darkness, his hands now drawn together nervously, his entire body shaking.

He stopped next to the second set of packaging crates and for awhile just stood there, taking in any sound that may have originated from somewhere and listening for any sounds of suspicion. When he heard nothing save for the creaking of the settling crates, he sighed, wiped the sweat from his brow, then looked around again before continuing into the darkness.

"Well, maybe he's not here," he said, laughing to himself—nervous laughter. He placed both of his hands onto the packaging crate and began to try and hoist himself up, as so to get a higher view of the area. "Maybe I was right…maybe he is out somewhere. Well, then, I suppose that this should be easier than I—"

He had nearly gotten himself halfway up at this point, when, much to the irony of the entire situation, a pair of glowing red orbs appeared at the top of the crate. Fungus's own three eyes grew wide behind his thick glasses, but it was soon that he saw the figure, which had now faded into view entirely and was sitting in a menacing pose atop the crate itself, its shoulders hunched over and saliva slowly dripping out of the corners of its mouth. Fungus swallowed hard, made an unintelligible stammering noise, then slowly withdrew his hands from the crate and began to backpedal toward the direction of the open doorway.

The monster leapt down from the crate and, keeping itself low to the floor, began to slowly pad toward him, its eyes narrowed, its pupils now vertical slits. Fungus continued to retreat slowly, as with every step he took backward, the monster took forward.

"_I thought I told you to stay out of here_," the creature hissed angrily, another drop of saliva hitting the ground.

Fungus opened his mouth to say something, pointed toward the doorway, swallowed hard, then, with a loud cry of fear, whipped around and began to bolt toward the doorway. He could hear the creature screech behind him, then he heard the sound of its feet hitting the linoleum full-force. The red-orange monster panted in fright, then picked up the pace. He looked up toward the doorway. Only a few more yards now…just a few more yards and he'd be home free…

Eventually he could hold it back no longer. "Randall!" he hollered at the top of his lungs, waving his arms around in pure terror. "Randall! Somebody! Anybody! He's in here! He's in the storage room! Oh, geez, someone help! Randall! Ran—"

His words were cut off by the door suddenly slamming closed in front of him. Fungus yelped in fright as he struck the door, then hit the ground with a loud _THUNK_ sound, sliding a few inches before eventually slowing to a halt. Panting, he got up slowly, then felt around for his glasses—he found that they'd been knocked off when he had hit the door.

It took him awhile to find them, but as he located them in the now pitch-dark area and slid them back into place, he could hear the familiar _CHINK_ sound of the door locking. Gulping again and flipping himself over onto his back, knowing for sure now that he was locked in the storage room with this monster, he looked around frantically, then was about to consider getting to his feet when…

"_I tried to warn you_." The monster's eerie hiss soon filled the silence.

Fungus swallowed, got to his feet, then looked around, trying to spot the thing out, but the blackness had clearly concealed it. No doubt it was in its invisible mode, he thought…

"_I tried to warn you_," the creature repeated. "_Sad that you wouldn't listen. You know that you can't interfere with my plans…neither can those pathetic friends of yours. But despite my feelings for the situation, I do find this rather convenient. Now I can finally finish what I intended to start with you_."

"No!" Fungus yelped; he then began to run off toward the packaging crates, but before he could get very far he ended up, in the fear of his emotion, losing his balance and falling back down. Bad move. There was a low whooshing sound as the creature leapt toward him, landing only inches from where the three-eyed monster was now lying, then a louder _SHINNG_ as its claws—no doubt—were released from their hiding place at its fingertips.

"No!" Fungus repeated, trying to scramble to his feet, but, much to his despair, he found it hopeless: either he was bound by fear or he had twisted something on the way down. Which didn't help the situation any further. "You can't do this! You can't!" He began panting horrendously, trying once again and failing to achieve his balance.

"I don't see anyone else stopping me," the clone replied calmly, the hiss now gone from its tone and replaced by a calm attire. "But don't worry. It'll all be over in a mere second…"

Fungus was now shaking so hard that if he ever decided to roll in the snow at some point, the effects couldn't have been much different. Knowing that it was hopeless, he tried one last time to reach help: "_Randall_!"

There was no response. The clone slowly raised its clawed hand above Fungus's body, as, from behind the closed door of the storage room, an ear-piercing scream emerged from the silence…


	7. Chapter Seven

**THE ANNIHILATION**

**By Grand High Idol**

**CHAPTER VII**

"It's done." Waternoose set the intercom down and turned to face Randall. "I've ordered everyone to evacuate the building until this monstrosity is stopped. But mark my words, Randall—" Waternoose shook a threatening finger in his direction—"If this creature does any damage to my factory _or_ my best Scarers, _you_ will be the one solely responsible. Do I make myself clear?"

Randall sighed, then crossed his arms. "Yes, Waternoose," he agreed roughly.

"Good." Waternoose's expression softened for a short moment, but soon immediately returned to its seriousness. "Now go and destroy that thing. I'll leave the building, but only if you and the others know what you're doing out there."

"Not to worry," Randall nodded, then his gaze traveled toward the ceiling, as he rubbed his chin with one hand. "I think I know what Tron's up to, and I'm pretty sure that he can be stopped…"

"He'd better be," Waternoose replied coldly. "This is the only scream energy factory in the entire city. If this creature does what you say he'll do—"

"He won't, Waternoose." Randall narrowed his eyes dangerously. "I'll make sure of _that_." 

* * *

"_YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH_!"

The ear-piercing shriek echoed throughout the warehouse before finally silencing. Tron growled angrily, then scanned the factory for any signs of motion before finally tending to the scrape on his chest, which had been left by none other than Fungus himself. Just as he was about to kill the three-eyed monster, Fungus had, without warning, leapt to his feet in a fright, causing him to smash into Tron and knock him backward a few inches. It didn't hurt him seriously, but it was enough to cause a distraction—while Tron screeched, Fungus had made a mad break for it deeper into the warehouse. He was now among the thousands of crates that the room contained.

Tron rubbed his chest, then snarled and looked back up in the direction of the crates. He knew that he had terrified Fungus enough to the point where he wouldn't come out in the open—he had to still be somewhere in the forest of crates.

Well, nothing would come of just standing there and fuming; it was time to start searching for the annoying little cretin. Tron dropped onto all eights, then flicked his tongue out, checking the floor for any scent, but it proved near impossible. He couldn't smell a thing…

Tron emitted a short gasping noise and bolted upright onto all fours, clutching his nose. He realized that not only couldn't he smell Fungus—he couldn't smell the crates, nor the musty stench that had been in the warehouse when he had dragged Randall in the first day. His synthetic sense of smell had been unstable, and therefore had worn down to the point where it had vanished entirely.

_Curses_, he thought, snarling angrily. _Well, never matter, I've slaughtered lives without having to smell them first. I suppose I'll just have to take care of this the old-fashioned way…_

He dropped down onto all eights, then slunk off into the pile of crates, poised to leap at any sign of motion within the area. He crept slowly, silently, looking in every nook and cranny, hoping that sooner or later he would find that annoying little monster, and when he did, he would _personally_ disembowel him one organ at a time…

He slowly turned the corner. Snarling, he again looked for any signs of motion, but it once again proved to no avail; Fungus was nowhere to be seen. Fronds flattened on the back of his head, shoulders hunched, he slowly slunk off into the shadows—just as Fungus emerged from inside one of the crates, panting lightly in fear and sweating profusely. He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow, then, once he was certain that Tron was gone, slowly climbed out of the crate, taking care not to make any noise for fear of the clone overhearing.

"I've gotta get out of here," he muttered to himself, clasping his hands together nervously. "Before that thing finds me…but how? The door is locked, and there's no other way out of the warehouse without him spotting m—"

It was then that he noticed the window, near the top of the warehouse. It was kept partway open to keep the place cool, he knew, and it was large—surely large enough for someone his size to squeeze out through. The only problem was that it was too high up to reach from the current elevation, and he couldn't risk stacking the crates. How was he supposed to get up there?

"Of course!" he gasped, snapping his fingers. "The pipeline."

A narrow pipe—not more than eight inches in diameter—ran from the room's heater to the ceiling, where a set of horizontal steel beams had been planted. If he could manage to get out of the crates undetected and climb up the pipe, he could probably use the beams to reach the window. But this was a matter of chance, and he knew full well that Tron was dangerous if provoked. He would have to do this carefully and quietly.

Slowly turning back the way he came in, tongue out in concentration, he began to walk quietly toward the ending of the crates, in the direction of the heater. Every now and then he would stop and listen for Tron, but the lizard monster was already too busy searching for him in another part of the area. He finally decided that, unless he made any loud noise of some kind, Tron wouldn't be able to spot him out and come after him.

Sucking in a breath, he decided to take his chances and ran the rest of the way. Stopping at the heater, he whipped around to spot out Tron, but no—to his luck, Tron was still out searching in the crates. Emitting a sigh of relief, Fungus climbed atop the heater, then immediately began to shimmy up the pipeline.

It took him awhile, but he finally managed to reach the top. Slowly leaning back, he leapt off the pipe and grabbed one of the steel beams, then yanked himself up. Taking care not to lose his balance, he looked down and began to slowly walk along the beam toward the direction of the open window. He was almost there…just a few more yards to go, and then he'd have done it…

"_AAAH_!"

He screamed and jumped back in fright as Tron landed in front of him, teeth bared and eyes glowing menacingly. The clone arched its back, emitted a low hiss, then slowly began to pad toward him.

"No, please, don't," Fungus pleaded, taking another shaky step backward. "N-nice clone. I'm sure w-we can t-talk this out, r-right?"

Tron responded with a low snarl, eyes narrowing further, tongue flicking out. Fungus gulped, struggled to regain his balance, then quickly backpedaled a few more steps. "Um…I take that as a 'no', correct?"

The clone bared its teeth again, revealing every single pearly-white in his mouth to the red-orange monster. Fungus swallowed hard, then, starting to feel shaky, took another step back—and fell off the beam.

He screamed as he fell toward the ground, but miraculously, when he was precious inches from hitting the linoleum, a pair of hairy arms reached out and caught him. He yelped in surprise, his glasses nearly falling off again, then began panting hoarsely as the hero—now revealed as Sullivan in the dim light coming from the now open warehouse door—set him on the ground.

"S-s-Sullivan!" Fungus stuttered, still trying to refrain from fainting. "How'd you manage to get in here? The door was—"

"Locked, I know." The blue-and-purple monster nodded. "Luckily, Needleman was still on the job before the building was evacuated, and I figured that I'd need the keys to the place in case Tron gets into a place we can't reach. As soon as I noticed that the warehouse door was locked I suspected foul play."

"Well…you're right." Fungus nodded, then pointed up toward the rafters. "That clone locked me in here, and now he's—"

He was cut short by Tron dropping down with an ear-splitting roar, landing directly atop Sullivan and pinning him to the ground. Sullivan let out a cry of surprise as Tron tackled him, then angrily swung one of his arms to the side. Tron was knocked to the side, giving Sullivan time to get to his feet before the clone sprang again.

This time he was ready. Leaping forward, he seized Tron by the neck and squeezed. Tron made a light choking sound, then snapped his head backward and extended his claws. The first set missed. The second set, however…

"_AAAARRRGH_!"

Tron landed on the floor, back arched, then, flicking his tail, he disappeared into the scenery of the room and was gone. The two monsters were left standing in a shock; Sullivan was clutching his arm tightly, a pained expression locked on his features.

Fungus noticed this at once. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, worriedly tapping his fingers together.

Sullivan laughed meekly. "Forgot about the stupid thing's claws," he muttered, removing his grip momentarily. Sure enough, Fungus saw, Tron's claws had raked a rather deep series of cuts across Sullivan's arm, causing it to bleed profusely. It was staining his fur, and several droplets of it had already struck the ground with faint _PLIP_ noises. "Heh, I suppose I'm lucky that all it did was scratch me. I'd hate to see the worst it could've done…"

"Either way, that looks pretty bad," Fungus replied, adjusting his glasses. "We'd better get that fixed up and examined before we do anything else."

"Nah, it's not that bad," Sullivan retorted, shaking his head. He brushed a few clots of blood off his fur. "I'm pretty sure I can handle it until we take care of this. There are a _lot_ of lives at stake here, remember."

"Well, okay," Fungus sighed, shrugging a shoulder. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Well, come on," Sullivan told him, heading back for the door. Fungus quickly trotted behind him. "We need to find the others. Lord knows where that thing could've gone now…" He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "And I also think that it's got something else on its agenda _besides_ us."

* * *

Tron emerged silently from one of the air ducts, landing on all eights directly outside the locker room. He shook his head to straighten himself out before continuing through the door.

"Stupid oaf," he growled, apparently referring to Sullivan. "Should've known better than to try and take _me_ on." He checked himself in the darkness of the bathroom mirror, checking all over for any injuries. He found none of the sort. "Never matter, he'll get his once I take care of my _main_ target."

He began to pad through the locker room, grinning insanely. "Oh, Boggs," he called in a singsong tone, the menacing expression locked on his face. "Where are you, Boggs? I've _got _something for you—and it's very _special_."

He leapt atop one of the lockers and looked around before slowly slinking back down onto the floor. "Hmm, you want to hide, eh? Very well. You'll soon find out that I can be just as good a seeker as you can be a hider." He chortled to himself before raising himself onto all fours and starting his search again.

Upon Tron's departure into the bathrooms, Randall finally emerged from the locker room wall, gasping for breath. He had held it the entire time Tron had been in the room—he couldn't take any chances. He had almost been certain that Tron would've sniffed him out, though—what was the deal with that? He hadn't even seemed to notice that Randall was there.

It was then that Randall recalled Needleman and the dumpster, and it didn't take long for his mind to reach a conclusion. _His sense of smell must have weakened_, he thought to himself, grinning. _If that's the case, then he can't sniff me out…which means that as long as I'm quiet and remain hidden, he won't even notice that I'm here. This is too perfect_…

Immediately blending himself back into his surroundings, he began to slowly creep after Tron, keeping a silent pace and his head lowered. Upon reaching the entrance to the bathrooms, he saw his clone inspecting the area under the sinks, the menacing leer still apparent in his expression. Deciding to play even with the creature, the green-eyed lizard monster slowly crept underneath one of the stalls, then jumped onto the toilet and raised himself up, poised for action. He knew that, if Tron was a thing like him, this was the next place he'd check…

He was proven right. Tron immediately went over to the stalls next and began banging them open, one by one. Randall leaned back a few more inches, eyes narrowed in determination…Tron was moving onto the next stall…his was only moments away from being opened…

_Okay_, he thought to himself, taking a deep breath. _Let's do it in three, two, one_…

The stall door opened, and Randall, still camouflaged, immediately sprung forward. He drove into Tron with full force, sending them both to the ground, Tron with a yelp of surprise to accompany him. He looked around, then, realizing what was going on, lowered his head and snarled.

"You know I'd find you, eh?" he hissed threateningly, as Randall slowly returned to his normal coloring.

Randall grinned sarcastically. "No," he replied. "It's because I knew you _wouldn't_ find me. Your sense of smell is weaker than a sow bug's!"

He then gave Tron a good sock across the face. The creature wasn't hurt by this action, but it was enough to make him angry. Growling, the clone struck back, sending Randall off of him and against one of the stall doors with a deafening _BANG_ sound. The lizard monster struck the ground, giving a deep shudder of pain.

"I may have lost one of my senses," the clone snarled, closing in on him, "But the other four are razor-sharp. And mark my words, Boggs, when I'm through with you the faculty won't be able to tell _you_ from lilac _confetti_!"

He grinned coldly. "Of course, it's too bad that the faculty won't be around to see your demise. By tomorrow morning they'll _all _be in the Monstropolis graveyard, _decomposing_!" He laughed at this remark.

"Big talker," Randall replied with an air of sarcasm, slowly getting to his feet. "Let's see if you can fight as well as you can talk!"

He then flipped backward over Tron's head, landed on the clone's back, and sunk his teeth deep into the skin on his neck. Tron gave an awkward screech—was it one of terror? Randall couldn't tell—and snapped his head to one side. Randall refused to let go.

Tron screeched again, then got onto all eights and bucked in an attempt to throw him off. Randall fell off the back, but his teeth continued to hold their position. Tron was lurched forward onto the floor along with Randall, and the clone continued to struggle, screeching angrily. At least, it seemed that way.

_For crying out loud_, Randall thought to himself. _If he wants me off so badly why doesn't he just _rip_ me off? It's not like he's got anything to lose, here_…

Finally, Tron swiped at Randall with his claws, raking them across his face and leaving another series of scratches, similar to the ones that he had inflicted upon Sullivan. Randall gave a yelp of pain and clutched his face, loosening his hold on Tron's neck in the process. Tron immediately whipped his head out of Randall's reach, then, instead of attacking Randall in his period of weakness, rushed over to the mirror to check on the teeth marks. They weren't much, given that the clone had tough skin—however, Randall's jaws had managed to leave one puncture wound near the side, and a multicolored trickle of blood was beginning to flow from it.

Tron screeched again—this time, Randall was positive it was terror—and quickly stuck his neck under the sink, washing the blood from the wound. When the blood stopped its flowing and slowly began to clot, the clone whipped around, a look of utmost rage burning in his eyes now.

"_YOU…MORON_," Tron snarled, then, with a scream of rage, leapt upon the lizard monster. Randall was still pained by the wounds he had received, and the discomfort prevented him from making any attempts to fight back. The most he could do was emit a scream of terror as Tron's claws dug into his flesh…

* * *

"Okay, I think I've finally figured out what we do," Mike told the other two, sounding excited. He pointed down at the crude map he had drawn of the factory on the back of one of his papers. "Now, we'll all split up in order to cover more ground. Sullivan, since you're the strongest, you take the Scare Floor. Fungus will take the facilities, and I'll—"

"No way," Fungus replied, shaking his head vigorously. "After what happened to me in the storage room I am _NOT_ splitting up again. That thing nearly got me _killed_ last time."

"Mike, why don't you go with Fungus?" Sullivan suggested. "That way, the two of you will be together if something should happen."

"Yeah, but you're missing the point of my whole plan, buddy," Mike replied. "You see, I drew this out very carefully, and I don't think that there's room for a change of—"

"Randall's been gone too long," Fungus replied, drawing his arms around himself and shivering. "I wonder what's happened to him—oh God, I hope that the clone didn't get him—"

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Sullivan replied calmly. "I'm pretty sure that wherever Randall is, he can take care of himself. Right now we need to find out where the heck that thing is, then—"

"Oh God!" Fungus squeaked; he then bolted off and hid behind a cart of scream canisters. Mike and Sullivan looked after him, wondering what was going on, but the padding noises and the low snarling answered all their questions. Quickly, the two bolted underneath the machinery, keeping as silent as possible, as Tron entered the room, looking quite satisfied with himself.

"What's _he_ smiling about?" Mike whispered to Sullivan; he then noticed the blood spattered over Tron's upper body as the clone swept past them and into the next room. Frozen, Mike finally sputtered, "Did you—did you see—"

"Yes, I did," Sullivan replied gravely, slowly crawling out from under the machine. "And if we're all here, and the entire factory's been evacuated, then that means—"

"Randall!" Fungus shrieked in terror; Mike quickly shot out and clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Shh," he ordered the red-orange monster, his eye narrowing. "You want that thing to find _us_ too?"

"That hallway leads to the locker rooms," Sullivan muttered, looking off toward the direction Tron had come from. "No doubt that if we go there, we'll find Randall."

"Or what's left of him." Fungus shuddered immensely.

Mike rolled his eye. "Oh, stop being so negative," he said, clapping Fungus on the back. "I'm sure that Lizard Boy is just fine. Let's just go get him and then go after that thing."

"I dunno, Mike," Sullivan sighed, beginning to head off toward the locker rooms. "Tron seemed pretty pleased with himself…and we all know that Randall is probably his main target. If that's so, then that means…" He stopped, then broke off into a dead run.

"Hey! Hey! Buddy! Wait up!" Mike called after him; he then ran after, dragging Fungus along with him.

Sullivan turned the corner roughly, then banged open the locker room door and began frantically searching. "Randall?" he called. "Hey! Randall!"

He checked every section of the lockers, then began to head toward the bathroom. "Randall! If you're here, answer me! Ran—" He stopped at the sight that beheld him. "Oh God. Oh _GOD_."

Blood. It was everywhere—splattered over the mirror, the floor, the stalls. And in the midst of the grotesque scene was Randall, lying on his back, pale and motionless. Both eyes were closed, the mouth was partway open, and the body seemed to have been badly battered—it was sprawled at an odd angle and covered head to foot with scratches and bruises. Sullivan took a moment to collect himself, then walked over to Randall and dropped to his knees.

"Hey, Randall," he said, picking up the lizard monster, who flopped backward like a rag doll. "Randall? You still alive? You okay?"

No response. Sullivan looked down at the body, then slowly let it drop to the ground, back into the blood. He gave a shudder of dread and looked around, then finally yelled at the top of his lungs, "_RANDALL_!"

Randall didn't answer. Sullivan held his head in both hands, trying to stay calm. However, given the situation it was proven more than difficult.

_So much blood—too much BLOOD—_

Randall's body gave a mild twitch, then the lizard monster groaned and shakily drew himself up. He opened one eye, looked around, then his gaze rested on Sullivan. "Uh…" he muttered, before shaking his head. "Sull…i….van….?"

"Yes," Sullivan replied, nodding quickly. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Tron…he came and…hurt …couldn't breathe…so much b-blood…" He dropped to the floor again, weakened by blood loss. "Claws…teeth…blood…afraid to bleed…"

Sullivan stopped at hearing this last statement. "What do you mean 'afraid to bleed'?" He asked the lizard monster curiously.

"Tron…afraid…to bleed," Randall gasped. "I bite…and…he…goes….nuts…"

"You bit him?"

"On…neck…went…crazy…tried to stop…bleeding…before…he hurt…me…"

"What?"

"Neck…blood…" Randall reeled backward, then passed out. Sullivan sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as Mike and Fungus entered.

"Hey, buddy, did you find—oh dear GOD!" Mike exclaimed, looking at the blood coating the walls.

Fungus shrieked and grabbed hold of Mike, who shoved him backward. "Is he okay?" he asked Sullivan, apparently on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. "Is he?"

Sullivan sighed, then scooped up Randall's body and turned to face them. "He's fine, he just needs some medical attention," he replied. "And I think he's figured something out. We just have to get him back into full consciousness before we do anything more."


End file.
